Wow !!!

Did it actually make the TV news in America ?!?!??!?!?!?

Moi is impressed !!!

HOOROO

UNCLE WALLY

----0----

MINERS COME OUT STANDING UP !!!!

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060508/australia_miners_060508/20060508?hub=CTVNewsAt11

Trapped Australian miners rescued after 2 weeks
CTV.ca News Staff

Two Australian miners trapped 3,000 feet underground for almost two
weeks were freed early Tuesday after a massive rescue operation.

Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, who were stuck inside a
kennel-sized steel cage beneath tons of fallen rocks since April 25,
walked out of the Beaconsfield Gold Mine after being rescued through an
escape tunnel.

After initial health checks underground, the pair, now national heroes,
emerged looking amazingly healthy and were embraced by elated family
members and friends.

Hundreds of people from the close-knit community gathered at the mine
gates erupted in joy when the pair surfaced.

Live pictures broadcast on Australian television showed the men waving
and pumping their firsts in the air as they were led into separate
ambulances.

A fire engine drove with its siren wailing through Beaconsfield, to
announce news of the rescue. A church bell not used since the end of
World War II rang out in celebration.

Russell left the hospital late Tuesday morning, while Webb remained to
devour a plate of steak and fries.

Rescuers toiled for more than a week to free the miners, and the
operation at the gold mine in Australia's southern state of Tasmania
has captivated the nation since the two men were discovered more than a
week ago.

In a slow, complex and dangerous rescue effort, specialist hard-rock
miners had to use hand tools to cut through the final sections of the
escape tunnel in order to avoid causing a cave-in.

To get to that point, the miners took a week to bore through nearly 14
metres of rock with a giant drilling machine.

Only one miner at a time was able to work in the tunnel, wielding
hand-held pneumatic drills, diamond-tipped chain saws and jackhammers
as heavy as 88 pounds.

Then, at 4:47 a.m. local time Tuesday (2:47 p.m. EDT Monday), the men
began creeping out one at a time from the cage which they were huddled
in for 13 days -- and crawled into the narrow escape tunnel.

Rescuers carried them through the tunnel on stretchers.

"The great escape is over," Union official Bill Shorten told
Australia's Nine Network television. "A giant rock of pressure has been
taken off these families."

Seventeen miners were working the night shift on April 25 when a
magnitude 2.1 earthquake sent tremors through the mine.

Fourteen men made it out, but Webb, Russell and Larry Knight, 44, had
been working deeper in the mine repairing a tunnel.

Webb and Russell survived because they had been working inside a steel
safety cage. A huge slab of rock landed on the 16-square-foot cage,
forming a roof that kept them from being crushed.

But rescuers found Knight's body two days later.

His family planned to hold a funeral for him Tuesday in the nearby town
of Launceston. They had delayed the service, hoping the trapped miners
would be able to attend.

"The Knight family has been so generous," said Shorten.

"They held up this funeral . . . and I don't know of many families that
would hold up a funeral. By Friday they said we've got to have it by
Tuesday, they made that decision, and how about that? At least one
thing's gone right in the funeral process: all the workers at
Beaconsfield will be able to be at the funeral."

Rescuers discovered that Webb and Russell were alive on April 30 when a
thermal imaging camera picked up their body heat.

A day later, the team forced a narrow pipe through a hole drilled
through the rock and pushed through supplies including food, water,
vitamins, fresh clothing, and even a pair of iPods.

Before the supplies arrived, however, the pair lived on a single cereal
bar and by licking water seeping through the rocks around them, for
five days.

With files from The Associated Press




Woodswun wrote:

On Mon, 08 May 2006 01:10:16 -0700, World War III 2006[The Last 2400
Days] wrote:

No, sadly, he carked it }:-(

HOOROO

UNCLE WALLY

I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully, he loved what he did so that he died
happy. I would hate to think that someone died doing something they hate.

BTW - heard the miners are about rescued, which is very good news!

Woods