Johannesburg: Nearly 500 miners who were trapped underground by a fire at a gold mine in South Africa were brought to the surface safely, a spokeswoman for mining company Harmony Gold said.

The fire at the mine near Carletonville, about an hour from Johannesburg, was detected at around 0740 GMT, nearly two kilometres underground. "All the miners are out," Charmane Russell told AFP. "Fortunately in this instance, things went according to plan."