WARSAW, Poland, July 14, (AP): A miner who was reported missing after an earthquake shook Poland's Rydultowy coal mine has been found alive more than two days after the accident that killed one of his colleagues and injured another 17, local officials said Saturday.
The miner has been airlifted to hospital and the rescue operation has been closed, said Witold Ga??zka of the coal mining group that operates the mine.
Earlier, the office of the provincial governor of the Silesia coal mining region, in southern Poland, said that the miner was conscious and was being transported to the surface.
"This is fantastic news,” provincial governor Marek Wojcik said on TVN24.
The head of the Polish Coal Mining Group that operates the mine, Leszek Pietraszek, said that rescuers reached the 32-year-old miner around 2 pm Saturday. He was conscious and communicating, but had some problems breathing. He received first aid from a doctor who also prepared him for transportation to the surface.
Hundreds of rescuers took part in the operation and at times had to be withdrawn from the corridor when more tremors were threatened or due to dangerous methane gas levels. The rescuers had to hand-sift through the rubble to reach the miner, authorities said.
Seventy-eight miners were in the area when a magnitude 3.1 tremor struck about 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) below the surface on Thursday afternoon.