This just shows what some clear headed thinking and hard
work will do for you. Sadly, I'm sure we'll hear the
god-bots taking credit, rather than the rescuer's efforts
and the miners' ingenuity and resolve to survive.
What an amazing rescue. In all honesty, I had given up
on them and thought this was a fruitless effort.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=3&u=/ap/20031029/ap_on_re_eu/russia_mine_accident
Bob Dog
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11 of 13 Trapped Russian Miners Found OK
2 hours, 20 minutes ago
By SERGEI VENYAVSKY, Associated Press Writer
NOVOSHAKHTINSK, Russia - Search crews blasted through solid rock
to rescue 11 of 13 coal miners who emerged covered in soot
Wednesday after six days trapped in a deep shaft in southern
Russia. One miner died underground and another remained missing,
emergency officials said.
Rescuers reached the men on Wednesday morning after drillers
punched through to the pit face where the miners had sought
refuge following a flood. Entering the chamber, the rescuers
found a note scrawled on a ventilation pipe, showing in which
direction the miners had moved, NTV television reported.
"The guys looked fine for people who have been trapped in a mine
for six days. They came out themselves," said Alexander Smetalin,
one of the rescuers. "They were found in the northern part of the
mine. They were lying there all together."
Smetalin said that the miners had climbed an incline in the shaft
in the Zapadnaya mine that kept them above the level of the icy
water. The missing miner apparently had left the others in hopes
of finding a way out, and rescuers were continuing to search for
him, officials said.
In spite of their ordeal, most of the miners walked out of the
shaft on their own after being carried or led about 1.5 miles
underground, emergency officials said. Black dust coated their
faces and thick blankets were draped over their shoulders.
As the miners emerged from the shaft, relatives who had kept
vigil outside the mine cried out their names. Doctors, policemen
and rescue workers surrounded the men who were hustled into
waiting ambulances, and some reached out to pat the miners on
the back in a restrained show of relief.
The rescued miners' eyes looked blank; none whose faces were
captured by waiting television cameras and photographers cracked
a smile.
The last live miner was carried out of the shaft on a stretcher
shortly after noon. Rescue workers said he apparently was
suffering from exposure but was conscious and responsive.
The Interfax news agency said that the director of the mine,
Vasily Avdeyev, who was among those trapped, had survived.
Rescuers carried out the body of the dead miner, Sergei Voytinok,
last. Russian Orthodox priests had accompanied the body on the
final leg of the journey to the surface, reciting prayers for the
dead as the shaft elevator rose.
As the rescue operation unfolded in southern Russia early
Wednesday, five miners were killed in a mine explosion in the
Primorye region of the Russian Far East. Sixty-six other miners
were rescued after the blast in the town of Partizansk, said
Viktor Beltsov, a spokesman for the Russian Emergency Situations
Ministry. The blast was due to a buildup of methane and was
blamed on lax safety practices, the ITAR-Tass news agency
reported.
After learning of the rescue and the Far East blast, President
Vladimir Putin told a Kremlin meeting that to his regret, mine
accidents in Russia "were taking on a systematic character."
The men who were rescued from the Zapadnaya mine were among 71
working some 2,625 feet below ground on Thursday when water from
a subterranean lake leaked into a shaft above them, blocking
their way to the surface. Twenty-five managed to escape, and 33
other miners who had been trapped by the flood were rescued
Saturday.
Emergency workers had blasted and drilled through solid rock from
an adjacent mine to reach the miners. In the meantime, hundreds
of tons of rock, soil and reinforced concrete pillars had been
dumped into the shaft to stanch the flood.
According to ITAR-Tass, it was the second such accident at the
southern Russian mine this year. Water flooded the mine in
February, but nobody was inside at the time, the news agency said.
Accidents are common in the Russian coal industry, and miners
stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety
standards. According to the Independent Coal Miners' Union, 68
miners were killed on the job last year and 98 in 2001.
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