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Rescuers break through to miners
SHAKHTY, Russia (CNN) -- At least 11 of the 13 miners trapped since last Thursday in a flooded coalmine in southern Russia have been found alive, Russian officials say. Ambulances have pulled up next to the entrance to the mine's elevator and are waiting to treat the miners when they are brought to the surface. Officials say one of the miners is confirmed to have died and another is still missing. The surviving miners are expected to reach the surface at around 11:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) on stretchers, CNN's Ryan Chilcote reported from the scene. The mood near the mine's entrance was "euphoric," Chicote added. Earlier Wednesday, rescuers drilled a small hole into the mine where they believed the miners had taken refuge, engineers on the site said. However after drilling, the workers encountered "bad air" -- air with a low oxygen level. They set up large ventilators to try to push that air out before continuing to blast near their drilling site a large enough hole for rescuers to pass through. The rescuers then found at 11 of the trapped miners further along the mine tunnel. The rescuers had tunneled through the solid rock from an adjacent mine, using explosives, drilling and digging equipment, toward the men's presumed position. The rescuers resorted to heavy machinery on Sunday following the euphoria of the day before when workers brought out 33 of the 46 miners who had become stuck. That was considered something of a minor miracle for Russia's rundown and disaster-prone coal industry. No contact had been made with the remaining miners since they became trapped on Thursday. A makeshift dam that had been stemming the flow of water in the flooded mine -- 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow -- suddenly gave way on the weekend, prompting a warning that the mine could quickly become flooded. Water was continuing to flood the mine, but rescuers had slowed the flow of water. Water could flood the entire mine before the rescue effort reaches the trapped miners -- which would have rendered the whole operation useless. The Interfax News Agency reported as many as 800 people were taking part in the rescue effort. The 46 miners became trapped Thursday around 7 p.m. As the mine began filling with water, the mine's electrical system shorted out, making the elevator to the surface inoperable, according to Oleg Grekov with Russia's Emergency Ministry in Rostov-on-the-Don, the regional capital. The stricken mine had flooded earlier this year as underground water rose. At the time no one was working in the shafts. The mines date from the 1950s and are only months from being "mined out." At that time, all the mines in the city are expected to shut down, leaving hundreds of people without jobs in an already poor economy. The rescue crews on this mission -- like the miners they're trying to save -- have not been paid since March. Accidents are common in the Russian coal industry, and miners stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety standards. According to the Independent Coal Miners' Union, 68 miners were killed on the job last year and 98 in 2001. In June, 11 workers died when a mine shaft collapsed in Russia's Kuzbass field in Siberia. And in post-Soviet Russia's worst such disaster, more than 60 miners died when a methane explosion ripped through a Siberian pit in December 1997.
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