On Friday, three miners in southern Honduras were freed days after the illegal gold mine in which they were working collapsed, according to a Reuters report.

Despite the rescue, eight men remain trapped in the mine, near El Corpus, about 70 miles south of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. Those remaining in the mine are feared to be dead.

The rescued miners were taken to the hospital, one with a head injury. All are expected to recover, news reports say.

Reuters earlier reported that rescue operations had been suspended since Friday because of unstable conditions that could prompt a landslide. The longer the miners are trapped, the less likely they are to survive, the report said.

"More than 60 hours have passed now, and it's difficult to think that they are alive," rescue spokesman Oscar Triminio told Reuters. "There are very strong smells of decomposing substances, but we cannot say yet whether it is the bodies."

When the three miners were rescued, the initial report said all 11 men had been saved. That misinformation prompted Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez to apologize, according to the BBC.

"The lack of communication in the area caused the rescue workers to give us false information," Hernandez tweeted.

The miners were trapped Wednesday when a landslide blocked their entrance.

Rescue crews initially made contact with three of the miners -- the ones that have been rescued -- and were able to pass them an oxygen hose. The crews have not been able to contact any of the remaining miners.

Siriaco Diaz, head of the rescue efforts, told the media the mine could be as deep as 260 feet. But since the mine is informal, there is no map of the underground network, increasing the difficulty of the rescue efforts.

El Corpus Mayor Luis Andres Rueda told the BBC the area has more than 50 informal mines and that hundreds of miners work in them daily. The miners use ladders to climb down into the earth and use pickaxes in an attempt to pull gold from the dirt.