Trapped Russian miners found alive
Rescue workers have found eleven of the trapped Russian miners alive after they had been underground for six days.
Thirteen miners were still trapped in the Zapadnaya coalmine in Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov Province in Southern Russia. Last Thursday the mine was flooded when a subterranean lake leaked into a shaft blocking the miners’ return to the surface.
On Saturday rescue workers brought 33 other miners to the surface but thirteen miners were still trapped 2,625ft below ground.
Eleven of the miners were found to be alive and one miner was confirmed as being dead. The thirteenth miner is still missing.
Rescue workers had to tunnel through 165ft of rock and coal in just four days to reach the trapped workers. The ‘tunnel of hope’ was drilled from a neighbouring mine, Komsomolskaya.
One of the eleven men is described as having serious injuries but ambulances are waiting on the surface to rush the victims to hospital. All of the eleven men are expected to brought up from the mine this morning.
Russia’s and the Ukraine’s mines are well known for having serious accidents and workers blame the lack of investment for their poor safety record.
In a separate incident, a methane explosion ripped through a mine in the town of Partizansk, some 81 miles from the city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast, killing five.
