46 trapped miners being rescued in Russia

Relatives of the trapped miners wait outside Zapadnaya coal mine in Novoshakhtinsk, southern Russia Friday. Rescuers began drilling passages to a flooded coal mine in southern Russia in a frantic attempt to save 46 miners trapped for more than a day by freezing water. PHOTO: AFP

Vladimir Chub, governor of the Rostov-on-Don region told reporters outside the mine: "We have contact with most of them but 13 are still missing."

A Reuters reporter saw eight of the 15 miners taken from the shaft at the Novoshakhtinsk colliery. A small lift capable of carrying no more than three people was being used to hoist miners to safety.

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A fleet of ambulances waited at the surface of the shaft and distraught relatives gathered around to see loved ones brought safely above ground.

As one group of miners emerged from the shaft, a small child shouted "Father, Father!" from the middle of the crowd.

The latest information dampened hopes raised by earlier news reports which said rescuers had made contact with all 46 miners trapped since Thursday evening 800 meters (2,500 feet) below ground by surging waters from an underground lake.

Contact was established with the miners some 36 hours after floodwaters from an underground lake poured into the Zapadnaya-Kapitalnaya shaft, knocking out power.

Interfax news agency, reporting from the colliery before the 15 miners were brought above ground, said the trapped workers were in two groups but were communicating with each other -- one made up of 33 miners, the other of 13.

The size of the "inspector's lift" -- designed to hold two or three people -- being deployed to raise the men to the surface meant that only a few miners could be brought above ground every half hour.

Lev Stroyakovsky, head of Rostovugol, the company that rents the shaft, said,"Rescue efforts are proceeding very slowly because of the damage that the shaft has sustained. We can only pull out three or four people at a time.

"I'm sure that within three or four hours we will have pulled them all out. But the fate of 13 miners remains unclear."

Teams from the Emergencies Ministry, one of Russia's most revered institutions for handling disasters, were at the site, and some 100 rescue workers were estimated to be underground.