Rescue workers found 24 miners missing underground after a gas explosion at a Ukrainian colliery and were bringing them to safety today through a narrow ventilation shaft.
They were still searching for another 12 still missing hundreds of metres underground after yesterday's explosion.
One of the miners rescued from the Karl Marx pit
Footage from the pit showed survivors being taken away on stretchers with serious burns, blackened faces and broken limbs.
Officials at the Donbass coalfield said two miners had been brought to the surface more than 24 hours after the blast caused widespread damage to the Karl Marx pit.
By late afternoon, officials said another nine miners had been lifted to the surface at the pit in Yenakiyevo, northeast of the regional centre Donetsk. One was in serious condition.
"This is a narrow shaft and the process is going to take a long time, several hours," Marina Nikitina, spokeswoman for the regional mine safety inspectorate, told Reuters. "We hadn't even dared hope for this number."
First deputy prime minister Oleksander Turchynov, the most senior government official at the site, said rescuers had now pushed down to the 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) level underground.
"We will talk about people being saved only once they are safe on the surface," he told reporters.