Australian miners found alive by chance
Ed Johnson
Associated Press
Detroit Free Press, US
________________
Sydney (Australia):
Glenn Burns peered through the narrow opening he had chiseled through the rock. Staring back were Todd Russell and Brant Webb, their dirt-caked, bearded faces illuminated by the beam of his miner's lamp.
The two-week Herculean effort to rescue the two miners was drawing to a close.
"We just made eye contact; that was first," said Burns, 47. He quickly pushed through his calloused fist and shook the men by the hand.
While Webb and Russell were reunited with their families after being trapped for 14 days underground at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania state, the men who rescued them recounted details of an ordeal that riveted Australia.
"They couldn't even lay their legs out straight," said Burns, describing the conditions the pair endured. He was one of several miners whose accounts were published Wednesday in Australian newspapers.
The accident at the century-old mine was triggered by a 2.1-magnitude earthquake April 25.
After the quake, three men were missing -- Webb, 37, Russell, 34, and Larry Knight, 44. They had been shoring up a tunnel more than a half-mile below the surface. As Knight operated the controls, Webb and Russell stood in a steel basket attached to a hydraulic arm, fixing mesh to the walls and roof of the tunnel.
Knight was crushed under tons of rock as the roof crumpled, but Webb and Russell survived, sharing a cage for 324 hours.
Knight's body was discovered two days later at the end of the tunnel. Rescue crews did not discover that Webb and Russell were alive until April 30, when the shift boss crawled over a pile of rubble and heard voices in the darkness.
Mine officials began the grueling process of boring an escape shaft through 52 feet of solid rock from a neighboring tunnel. A narrow tube was drilled to the men's safety cage to deliver food, water, blankets, iPods and even flavored ice.
May 11, 2006
Ed Johnson
Associated Press
Detroit Free Press, US
________________
Sydney (Australia):
Glenn Burns peered through the narrow opening he had chiseled through the rock. Staring back were Todd Russell and Brant Webb, their dirt-caked, bearded faces illuminated by the beam of his miner's lamp.
The two-week Herculean effort to rescue the two miners was drawing to a close.
"We just made eye contact; that was first," said Burns, 47. He quickly pushed through his calloused fist and shook the men by the hand.
While Webb and Russell were reunited with their families after being trapped for 14 days underground at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania state, the men who rescued them recounted details of an ordeal that riveted Australia.
"They couldn't even lay their legs out straight," said Burns, describing the conditions the pair endured. He was one of several miners whose accounts were published Wednesday in Australian newspapers.
The accident at the century-old mine was triggered by a 2.1-magnitude earthquake April 25.
After the quake, three men were missing -- Webb, 37, Russell, 34, and Larry Knight, 44. They had been shoring up a tunnel more than a half-mile below the surface. As Knight operated the controls, Webb and Russell stood in a steel basket attached to a hydraulic arm, fixing mesh to the walls and roof of the tunnel.
Knight was crushed under tons of rock as the roof crumpled, but Webb and Russell survived, sharing a cage for 324 hours.
Knight's body was discovered two days later at the end of the tunnel. Rescue crews did not discover that Webb and Russell were alive until April 30, when the shift boss crawled over a pile of rubble and heard voices in the darkness.
Mine officials began the grueling process of boring an escape shaft through 52 feet of solid rock from a neighboring tunnel. A narrow tube was drilled to the men's safety cage to deliver food, water, blankets, iPods and even flavored ice.
May 11, 2006
