Rescuers tell how humour kept trapped miners going

TWO Australian miners freed after 14 days trapped deep underground survived by digging through rock and rubble with their bare hands, drinking dirty trickles of water and joking about their fight for life.

Trapped in a cage the size of a double bed under a cave-in which looked like a nuclear bomb had struck, it took a maverick miner to risk his own life to find his trapped mates, local newspapers reported yesterday.

Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, walked free of the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in the pre-dawn darkness on Tuesday after a cave-in on April 25 killed a third miner, Larry Knight.