Philippine Gold Miners Rescued After a Week Underground

By JIM GOMEZ / AP WRITER

MANILA — Battered and bruised from trying to swim to safety, rescuers saved six men trapped for a week in an abandoned gold mine in the northern Philippines, but eight others remained unaccounted for, officials said Tuesday.

Divers were trying to reach two other men seen in the shaft, but it was not clear if they were still alive, said Mines and Geosciences Bureau officer George Baywong, who is supervising rescue efforts. He said six others remained missing.

"We don't know if they are survivors," Baywong said. "We are hoping against hope that they are still alive."

The men entered the mine in the mountain township of Itogon during a typhoon Sept. 22 that rapidly flooded the tunnels, officials said. The bodies of two miners were retrieved Sept. 25.

Rescuers and relatives applauded as three survivors were brought out Monday and three others Tuesday on stretchers. They were weak and ravenous—one said he ate part of his shirt to stave off hunger pangs—but appeared to be in generally good health.

"This is some sort of a miracle," Neoman de la Cruz, another Mines and Geosciences Bureau officer, told The Associated Press by telephone. "Our hardships have been compensated and we won't give up our search for more survivors."

Nearly 100 rescuers have been battling heavy rains and rising water to look for the miners, de la Cruz said. The search was focusing on tunnels where faint human voices could be heard.

The tunnels, dug decades ago in mountainous Benguet province, were abandoned in the 1990s by a gold mining company which had posted guards at two entrances to prevent accidents. The trapped miners—who were working on their own with no permit—dug a narrow passageway to gain access to the tunnels, Baywong said.

The first two miners rescued Monday managed to survive by standing on a ledge in a tunnel where there was enough oxygen to keep them alive. Four others rescued late Monday and Tuesday morning were found in separate elevated portions of the shaft. Baywong said all were taken to a hospital.

The men said they survived on dripping rainwater collected in plastic containers.

"They had water to drink but nothing else, no food at all. One was so hungry, he told me he ate a part of his shirt," said Manuel Quirino, a doctor who examined the miners after they were brought out alive.

Paramedic Rafael Valencia told The Associated Press by telephone from Itogon that he asked one miner if he was hungry.

"Are you kidding me sir? How can I not be hungry? There was no restaurant inside," Valencia quoted the man as saying in jest as he was carried out.

Most of the miners were bruised and battered from repeated attempts to swim out of the flooded tunnel—700 feet (200 meters) below the ground—Valencia said.

"One virtually had lost hope they would make it out of there alive, especially after many of their headlamps lost power," Valencia said.

"They told us they slept and waited and slept and waited. They prayed. By a stroke of luck and the efforts of so many rescuers, they made it alive," he said.