Faster Drill May Speed Rescue Of Miners

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30275, 30 October 1963, Page 11

Faster Drill May Speed Rescue Of Miners

(N.ZJ’.A -Reuter—Copyright)

LENGEDE (West Germany), October 29. Three miners entombed in the flooded Mathilde iron ore pit at Lengede passed their fifth night underground on aii* mattresses as drilling of the rescue shaft went on hour after hour with painful slowness.

The drill sinking the 20-inch shaft descends only a yard and a half an hour under the best rock conditions. At 10 p.m. G.M.T. last night it was about 88 feet down—less than a third of the way to the entombed men.

The three—Gerhard Manusch, aged 43, Emil Polhay, 34, and Fritz Leder, 26—-can-not hope for rescue before Thursday through this shaft.

But there is just a chance that their rescue may be speeded by a new drill, which can sink three to five yards an hour and which was being assembled beside the first drill during the night. The fast drill is expected to begin work this morning The men, trapped in a highpressure air pocket more than 80 yards down since a flood killed 40 of their comrades last Thursday, are reported to be in good heart.

They are being supplied with food and drink through a pilot shaft which reached

them on Saturday, and they also can talk by radio-tele-phone to their wives and others on the surface. The rescue operation is

unique in that the shaft must be sunk under high pressure to prevent air gushing out of the underground gallery. Firms which have contributed equipment and experts for the rescue work are estimated to have spent more than 1,000,000 marks so far. Until the pilot shaft broke into the underground gallery where the men were trapped, it was thought that four survivors might be there. But only three were found. Yesterday, the mine's director, Mr Rudolf Stein, revealed that the fourth man, Karl Eull, had given his life to warn his comrades about the onrushing floods. It had been learned from other survivors that Eull, 56-year-old father of two daughters, had been working about a mile from his three comrades when the torrent burst into the pit from a broken reservoir.

Instead of running to a lift nearby, Eull shouted: “I must warn my pals.” He ran back towards the gallery

where they were working. He was never seen again. Mr Stein said the three men had told rescuers over their radio-telephone link last night that they had stayed calm during their 70-hour wait for help. They had tried not to fall asleep and made their lamps last as long as possible. But they had been sitting in darkness for 30 hours when the supply shaft broke through into their gallery. The gallery, a dead end 100 yards long by 10 feet high and wide, is in effect a bubble of high-pressure air in the flooded mine.

Doctors who have spoken to the trapped men said they appeared to be in good shape and unaffected by the high pressure in the chamber. Given enough food and drink they should hold out until their rescue.

Mr Stein said there were 176,000 cubic feet of air in the gallery. If the water should threaten to rise, as it did for a time, they could control it by letting in more air from a ventilation pipe passing through the chamber. When the shaft breaks through and has been sealed against pressure leaks, a volunteer will be lowered down to the trapped men to test the “rescue bomb,” a slim metal container in which they will be hauled to the surface one by one. As soon as the men reach the top they will be rushed into decompression chambers to prevent their suffering "bends," the painful and sometimes fatal cramp experienced by deep-sea divers who come to the surface too quickly.