Trapped miners: Rescuers making progress
Rescuers are making good progress drilling an escape tunnel for two Australian miners trapped for more than a week in a tiny cage nearly 3,000 feet underground, officials said today.
Matthew Gill, manager of the century-old Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania, said Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, remained in “good health and in good spirits” as they entered their ninth day entombed underground.
The men have been trapped since April 25 when an earthquake caused tons of rocks to fall on the safety cage they were working in.
Rescuers managed to reach the pair with a narrow pipe on Monday and pumped through fresh water and food. Teams are now drilling a 52ft long tunnel through hard rock to reach the men.
Gill said the pair had been given egg sandwiches yesterday, their first solid food in days, and had received yoghurt for breakfast today.
Union official Bill Shorten refused to speculate on when the tunnel would be completed.
“I know perhaps it’s been slow to people, but not here. It’s good progress,” he said.
Tasmanian Ambulance Service paramedic Matthew Eastham paid tribute to the men’s resilience and patience.
“All I can say is, they are incredible guys. They’ve got good spirits. We have a joke about some things, but we know the reality and they know the reality and they are happy to wait for the progress,” he said.
The men were physically “quite OK”, he said and paramedics had been giving them simple physical tasks such as cleaning scratches on each other, to keep them occupied.
“They are getting on very well together, and … we’ve developed some simple tasks where they help each other, they are getting on extremely well,” Eastham added.
