Beaconsfield, Tasmania mine rescue

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The two miners, Brant Webb & Todd Russell, who have been trapped underground, in Beaconsfield, in the State of Tasmania, Australia, for 13 days, have been rescued, alive and healthy. A minor earthquake triggered a collapse when several miners were working their shift about a kilometre ( 3000 feet) underground, killing Larry Knight and entombing the two. Rescuers used innovative rescue techniques to save them, after first punching through the rock with a small hole to place a PVC pipe through which food, clothing, iPods, bedding, medical supplies and items the trapped miners could use to assist their own rescue, were sent. The rock was said to be 5 times harder than concrete but could not be blasted due to the precarious nature of the mine roof. Rescuers used a $6 million vertical boring machine, lent by another mine in Western Australia, to create a horizontal tunnel about 80 feet long and a metre (3 feet) in diameter and then dug the remaining 4 metres ( 12 feet) hand drilling and using low impact explosives to chip away the rock centimetres ( cm=about half inch) at a time. Because paramedics were on station throughout the ideal, the men emerged in good health and on their own feet, with their mining lights blazing.

The ambulances drove from the site with the doors open so the locals and the nation could see for themselves that the men had, indeed, been rescued. an important part of healing the traumatised. As a show of Australian good humour (humor) the first thing they did was to 'log off' their 'long shift' by removing their name tags from a wall outside the mine elevator. Another touch of humour was the attitude they had to the collapsed area of the mine where they were located... they called it a "two star hotel" and they were the two "stars". Congratulations to all those, from right around Australia, who co-operated to rescue these men from so far down in the earth.

Thank you to those near and far who sent words of hope. In a selfless act, the family of the deceased miner, Mr Knight, delayed his funeral until his colleagues could be rescued and they would be able to attend his funeral which is now scheduled for 1:pm Tuesday ( today) local time. This is the "mateship" Australians are known for. "Mateship", in Australia, simply means that we are one large 'family' and you stick by your mates, you do not abandon them, you protect them, you defend them. Any nation which is a friend of Australia, has a good mate to rely on.

R.I.P Larry Knight.