Workers descended into a dangerous claustrophobia-inducing gold mine in Myanmar.

Action camera footage shows the employee being lowered down the 400ft shaft while hanging on a rope in Mandalay on January 12.

The walls on the way down were covered with wood until he reached the rocky part that was darker.

He joined his colleagues who drilled on the rock to find the precious metal.

Mandalay is famous for its gold-leaf production. Skilled artisans in the city create thin sheets of gold for gilding Buddhist statues, pagodas, and other religious artefacts. The gold-leaf workshops in Mandalay are a popular attraction.

Gold demand has soared in recent years fueled by inflation, political instability and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. The price has soared to record highs with central governments - notably China and Russia - buying up large quantities of the precious metal as a hedge against the dollar and the power of the West.

Controversial banker JP Morgan famously said: 'Gold is money, everything else is credit.'

However, some investors remain cynical of the benefits of gold, which was dubbed the 'barbarous relic' by economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed it had limited uses.

Stock market doyen Warren Buffet is similarly dismissive of gold, which he does not hold in his investments.

He said: 'Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it.'