Rescue Near For Trapped Miners

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30278, 2 November 1963, Page 11

Rescue Near For Trapped Miners

(N .Z .P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LENGEDE (West Germany), November 1. Work to rescue the three trapped miners of Lengede gathered speed today and latest indications were that they would be brought up this afternoon after their eight days underground. Chances of the safe recovery improved considerably this morning after the second vital phase of the rescue operation—the withdrawal of the drill bit from the rescue shaft—was successfully completed.

The first phase

through of the drill into the gallery early today. But the men still have to go through a third hazard their return to normal atmospheric pressure.

As the rescue work went into its final stages the men had breakfast—and then went to sleep. Technicians had only 10 seconds to get the bulky bit out of the shaft entrance this morning and shut the valves again to prevent air from escaping. If there had been more than 10 seconds’ delay in closing the valves, after the removal of the drill, too much air would have escaped. Water would have burst into their gallery and drowned tihe men. The giant drill, which bored 260 feet down to the trapped men broke through to the gallery at 2.15 a.m. G.M.T.

The drill head was safely withdrawn at 5.29 a.m. G.M.T. and at 7.45 a.m. G.M.T, the decompression chamber was lowered on to the shaft entrance, two hours ahead of schedule.

The three men escaped the flood disaster which killed 40 of their comrades in the Mathilde iron ore pit on October 24 because they were in a dead-end gallery where a pocket of compressed air kept the waters at bay.

When the men are hauled up the shaft they must still be brought back to normal air pressure in the decompression chamber to avoid the danger of the painful and sometimes fatal bends, which afflict deep-sea divers who surface too quickly. Soon after the drilling was resumed yesterday afternoon the miners Geerhard Hanusch, aged 43, Emil Pohlai, 34, anB Friz Leder, 26, all married men with children—completed their first week of entombment. The break-through came after 27 and a half hours’ drilling spread over three days. When the drill had completed the shaft the miners began to shovel aiway the debris it had brought down with it. They cleared a space for the “rescue bomb,” which will be let down with a ballast load on a trial run. Then a volunteer mine overseer will go down to help the miners to get into the “bomb”—a slim metal container—for their ride to the surface. Pohlai, who has no mine rescue experience, will go up first. The volunteer will go u,n last

had been the break-

Nine doctors will be waiting to attend them when they reach the surface. Two of them wild be in the decompression chamber, where the miners will spend two or more hours immediately on leaving the shaft. The mine’s manager, Mr Rudolf Stein, said the drill pierced the gallery roof exactly in the middle of a gap between two steel girders. He said the miners had shown no signs of excitement when speaking to the surface over their radio-telephone after the break-through. “Their anxiety was too great for that,” he said. Mr Rudolf Stein, the director of the mine company, said later that work on the decompression chamber would be finished at 9 a.m. G.M.T. Then there would be a trial run with the rescue bomb loaded with iron ballast, and afterwards the volunteer would descend. The actual rescue might be finished by 2 p.m., Mr Stein said. He said the three men would be told of the deaths of their 40 comrades when they were in the decompression chamber.