Two miners come out alive after being trapped for nine days in South Korea

Nov. 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Two miners trapped for more than nine days in a collapsed zinc mine in eastern South Korea have been found and rescued alive this Saturday morning, according to local authorities.

The pair of miners, who had been trapped in a vertical shaft some 190 meters underground at a zinc mine in Bonghwa county, 244 kilometers southeast of Seoul, since the mine collapsed on Oct. 26, according to Yonhap agency reported.

The rescue authorities have indicated that the miners left at 11:00 a.m. (local time) after 221 hours underground and that they are hospitalized, although they show a stable health condition.

Rescue teams began the search for the mine workers last Thursday by drilling a hole and inserting an endoscope in an effort to reach the point where the two men had been trapped.

Specifically, the rescuers believe that the miners would have set up a tent with plastic and would have made a fire inside a tunnel to protect themselves from the cold. Meanwhile, they subsisted on instant coffee powder that they brought when they went to work and drinking water that fell from the well after finishing the coffee, the agency quote has collected.

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, has welcomed the news, assuring that it was a miraculous event.

“It’s really a miracle. Two miners who were isolated in a zinc mine in Bonghwa were rescued safely… Many thanks to the rescuers from the fire department and mine rescuers who did their best in the past few days.” , he has asserted on his Facebook account.