SEOUL: Two South Korean miners who were trapped for more than nine days in a collapsed zinc mine have walked out alive, in a miraculous end to a difficult rescue operation.
The two men were trapped in a vertical shaft about 190 metres (620 feet) underground after the mine collapsed on October 26 in Bonghwa, eastern South Korea.
Dramatic local TV footage showed them emerging from the mine on Friday, assisted by rescue workers. The survivors, aged 62 and 56, were in stable condition, authorities said.
To keep warm, the miners are believed to have built a fire and a tent out of plastic inside a tunnel, they added.
The survivors “had instant coffee mix powder with them, and I was told they had that as a meal,” said Lim Yoon-sook, a fire department officer.
“I’ve been also told they endured by drinking any water that dropped inside the shaft.”
Family members were overjoyed, saying they still cannot believe the good news.
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“I just yelled out: father!” a beaming Park Geun-hyeong, the son of one of the survivors, said of the moment they were reunited.
“I told him: you’ve become a famous figure now.”
A woman surnamed Lim, the niece of the other survivor, said her uncle at first kept asking who she was – as he was wearing an eye patch after almost 10 days in the dark.
He laughed when he finally recognised her.
“This still feels surreal,” she added.
The news came during a period of national mourning in South Korea, after more than 150 people were killed in a crowd crush in Seoul last week.
President Yoon Suk-yeol issued a Facebook message on Saturday, calling the men’s return “truly miraculous”.
“Thank you and thank you again for coming back safely from the crossroads of life and death,” he wrote, also thanking rescue workers.
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