Rescuers hoping to reach stranded miners

Rescue workers were tonight hoping to rescue 13 trapped Russian coal miners missing since icy water flooded into their pit four days ago.

Officials say they believe there is a strong chance the men are alive, assuming they reached a spot that could remain dry as the water continued to flood into the mine.

Rescuers are tunnelling from an adjacent mine toward the men’s presumed position and be early evening had drilled 40 yards of the 53 yards separating the two mines.

“The prognosis is rather comforting and we expect the rescuers to reach the miners in the early hours of Tuesday,” said Alexander Kornichenko, the deputy chairman of the Russian mine safety authority.

On Saturday, 33 other miners who had been trapped by the flood were brought to the surface from the Zapadnaya mine in southern Russia.

The miners were working 2,625 feet below the surface on Thursday when water from a subterranean lake leaked into a shaft above them, blocking their way to the surface.

Despite efforts to plug the flow, new torrents flooded into the shaft.

Hundreds of tons of rock, soil and reinforced concrete pillars were dumped into the shaft to seal the leak, but water continued to flow into the mine.

170 trucks were engaged in dumping rocks into the shaft at a rate of one truckload per minute.

“At present, a group of military mountain rescuers is working to get into Zapadnaya mine from the side of another mine,” Kornichenko said.

“The rescuers are digging the tunnel in the direction where the trapped miners are expected to stay.”

Kornichenko said rescue officials believed the miners had found a dry place to stay, and that temperatures in the mine were 24C (75 F) and there was no danger they would freeze.

But, he said, evaporation of water in the mine could expose them to cold.

“As long as they have oxygen and water, they have a chance to survive,” he said. “We are doing everything possible, and even impossible, to find the miners alive.”

There were 71 miners working in the mine in the Rostov-on-Don region, 600 miles south of Moscow, when the accident happened,

Twenty-five miners managed to escape to other pits and reach the surface after the leak filled several shafts.

Accidents are common in the Russian coal industry, and miners stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety standards.