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Miners Trapped
Aired October 24, 2003 - 14:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: In Russia now, it's a race against time and rising water there. Rescuers are frantically trying to reach more than 40 miners trapped in a coal mine that is filling fast with water, and filling fast.
CNN's Ryan Chilcote is at the scene, 600 miles south of Moscow.
Ryan, what's the very latest now?
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good afternoon, Heidi.
Forty-six miners are still trapped about a half mile beneath where I'm standing right now in what is known here as the Zapadia (ph) mine. That's Russian for "the western mine," in this southern Russian city of Nova Shocta (ph). They have been trapped in this mine down there now for 27 hours; 27 hours ago, it was 7:00 p.m. here, 71 people at work in the mine, when water started to flood into that mine from a nearby mine which had been abandoned, which had been closed down, in which ground water was accumulating. The water -- the pressure of that water accumulating in that nearby mine became so great that the pressure from that water became so great that it literally forced its way into this mine and has been flooding this mine at an absolutely startling rate. Yesterday, it was flooding the mine to the tune of -- to the rate of three feet every minute. Now it's filling up about three feet per hour.
There's a quick rescue effort going on right now, miners trying to fill up one shaft to stop the water flow. They are also trying to dig a tunnel to those miners. They have no communication with them however. Apparently, we've just learned that some scuba divers have been bought in. The idea is that perhaps those scuba divers may even have to swim through that water to try to find those miners who may be trapped, hopefully trapped, inside of a pocket of air down in the mine -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Ryan Chilcote, thanks so very much for the update on that, coming to us south of Moscow.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 24, 2003 - 14:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: In Russia now, it's a race against time and rising water there. Rescuers are frantically trying to reach more than 40 miners trapped in a coal mine that is filling fast with water, and filling fast.
CNN's Ryan Chilcote is at the scene, 600 miles south of Moscow.
Ryan, what's the very latest now?
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good afternoon, Heidi.
Forty-six miners are still trapped about a half mile beneath where I'm standing right now in what is known here as the Zapadia (ph) mine. That's Russian for "the western mine," in this southern Russian city of Nova Shocta (ph). They have been trapped in this mine down there now for 27 hours; 27 hours ago, it was 7:00 p.m. here, 71 people at work in the mine, when water started to flood into that mine from a nearby mine which had been abandoned, which had been closed down, in which ground water was accumulating. The water -- the pressure of that water accumulating in that nearby mine became so great that the pressure from that water became so great that it literally forced its way into this mine and has been flooding this mine at an absolutely startling rate. Yesterday, it was flooding the mine to the tune of -- to the rate of three feet every minute. Now it's filling up about three feet per hour.
There's a quick rescue effort going on right now, miners trying to fill up one shaft to stop the water flow. They are also trying to dig a tunnel to those miners. They have no communication with them however. Apparently, we've just learned that some scuba divers have been bought in. The idea is that perhaps those scuba divers may even have to swim through that water to try to find those miners who may be trapped, hopefully trapped, inside of a pocket of air down in the mine -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Ryan Chilcote, thanks so very much for the update on that, coming to us south of Moscow.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
