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Rescuers reach injured miner in Zofiówka colliery

Marcin Gołębiowski, director of works at Zofiówka, told a press briefing on Tuesday that the rescue team had reached the injured miner shortly before 15:00 and that the location corresponded to that indicated by emergency beacons located in the miners' lamps that were detected earlier.
Zbigniew Meissner/PAP

A team from the Central Mining Rescue Station working at the Zofiówka mine in the southern Polish province of Silesia, have managed to reach one of four miners missing after a tremor hit the pit on Saturday.

Marcin Gołębiowski, director of works at Zofiówka, told a press briefing on Tuesday that the rescue team had reached the injured miner shortly before 15:00 and that the location corresponded to that indicated by emergency beacons located in the miners’ lamps that were detected earlier.

“An attempt is currently underway to get him out from under water and transport the injured man to the base and then to the surface,” Gołębiowski said, adding that the search continued for the remaining miners.

On Tuesday evening, Gołębiowski reported that the bodies of the remaining missing miners had been discovered and were being brought to the surface. He said the families had been informed though the bodies had not yet been identified, but that “the seventh and eighth worker have already been dug out from under the equipment – from under the water. They are being transported to the base.”

“The ninth worker is also being dug out and we will progress to digging out the tenth worker,” Gołębiowski explained, adding that the locations indicated by the emergency beacons had been accurate.

Rescuers had extended a pipeline to pump fresh air into the mine shaft where the rescue operations were taking place as well as pumping out water from the excavation area, JSW, the mine’s owner, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning.

The Zofiówka mine was hit by a tremor, accompanied by a methane discharge, at 03:40 on Saturday, some 900 metres underground, forcing dozens of workers to flee the site. Ten miners, however, were unaccounted for at that time. Six were later confirmed dead.

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