AUSTRALIA: Two Australian miners trapped in a small cage deep underground for 14 days walked out of the mine yesterday, triumphantly thrusting their arms into the air after rescuers freed them shortly before dawn.
But celebrations were short- lived for one of the freed miners who limped into church a few hours later to attend the funeral of a colleague killed in the same cave-in on April 25th at the Beaconsfield gold mine in the southern island state of Tasmania.
Brant Webb (37) and Todd Russell (34) were trapped 925 metres (3,000 feet) underground in a wire cage, about the size of a double bed, after a small earthquake reportedly caused a cave-in.
A third miner, Larry Knight, (44) was killed in the cave-in.
Two weeks later Webb and Russell, wearing yellow jackets and mining helmets with their lamps shining brightly, walked out of the mine shaft and straight to a large board to remove their name cards - ending their underground shift. Their wives rushed to hug them before scores of rescuers descended on them hugging and shaking hands.
"This is the great escape. This is the biggest escape from the biggest prison we have, the planet," said Australian Workers' Union chief Bill Shorten. "This a great escape for the families; they too have been released with these men."
The freed miners were given a clean bill of health.
Russell ate a breakfast of steak and eggs before leaving hospital and attending Knight's funeral.
Australian prime minister John Howard praised the rescue operation as a triumph of "Australian mateship" as miners from around the country worked together to save the two men.
Webb and Russell were found alive five days after the cave-in, but digging the 16-metre (48-feet) horizontal rescue tunnel towards them was painstakingly slow as miners had to grind through rock five times harder than concrete.
Rescuers used hand-boring equipment and precise low-grade explosives, sometimes as close as 30 centimetres (11 inches), to make the final breakthrough to the men. At one stage the trapped miners called on rescuers to stop blasting and one of them crawled to check the stability of rocks above.
Media executives and agents have reportedly been jockeying for exclusives with the men, with talk of Aus$250,000 (€151,000) for an interview and Aus$2 million (€604,000) for a combined magazine, television, book and movie deal.