Five Bosnian coal miners died after an earthquake triggered a gas explosion and tunnel collapse, trapping dozens of men underground for 20 hours, an official said Friday. "This accident is a big tragedy for the whole of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Unfortunately five lives were lost," regional governor Nermin Niksic said. "We share the pain of the families of miners who have died," he added.
The accident occurred in the Raspotocje mine in the suburbs of Zenica, in central Bosnia, which was hit on Thursday by a 3.5-magnitude earthquake. Twenty-nine other miners, visibly exhausted and covered in dirt, emerged into daylight on Friday after rescue crews broke through to the gallery 600-metres (yards) underground where they had been sheltering.
Some were carried on stretchers while the weakest walked with help of rescuers. Twenty-five of them were hospitalised but none with life-threatening injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said. "We were digging with hands and throwing coal everywhere. We were even putting it into pockets, on the sides," one of the rescuers told AFP. "The traped miners have been also digging on their side. When there were only five meters (16 feet) to dig we heard them. We then pushed them a pipe in which we poured water and they were drinking on the other side. Then we made a hole just sufficient for them to pass through," Savudin Dizdarevic explained.
Niksic praised the rescuers for "making superhuman efforts to save their comrades". Two miners were injured in the gas explosion, and were hospitalised overnight. One of them, Muris Tutnjic, told local media: "I was lucky." Another 22 miners managed to make it out earlier, just after the blast, mine manager Esad Civic said. Several families stayed in front of the mine for hours waiting for rescue operations to end, then burst into tears when they realised that their relatives had not walked out.