Bacon and eggs on the menu for trapped miners
Last night, rescuers in Tasmania were still working to drill through 40 feet of rock to reach gold miners Brant Webb and Todd Russell. They had made contact with the pair and had given them fresh water and some food.
The gold miners were wedged inside the cramped cage that saved their lives and had survived by drinking rancid water dripping through rocks trapping them 3,000ft underground.
It may still take a day or more to free them as rescuers fear a second deadly rock collapse in Tasmania state’s Beaconsfield Gold Mine.
The tight-knit community living around the mine was still rejoicing yesterday at the news that the two men were still alive, six days after a small earthquake triggered a rock collapse that killed one of their workmates and sealed them deep underground.
Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten said: “Beaconsfield is the centre of a mining miracle.”
Local mayor Barry Easther said: “They say miracles happen. I didn’t think there was going to be one at Beaconsfield.”
The full story of their survival has yet to emerge but Mr Russell, 34, and Mr Webb, 37, were apparently saved by a slab of rock that fell on to the protective cage of their cherry picker and prevented smaller rocks slamming into them.
Enough oxygen got through to keep them alive.
On Sunday afternoon, rescuers managed to drill a tiny tunnel all the way to the place where they were trapped. After feeding a local cameraman’s microphone through the narrow hole, they established a line of communication.
Mr Russell’s first words to his rescuers included an expletive and were short and to the point.
“It’s [extremely] cold and cramped in here. Get us out,” he said.
Those two brief sentences — the first confirmation in five days that they had survived — unleashed a wave of relief over both men’s families and the miners who had toiled for five days to reach them.
