The last of 16 miners trapped in a flooded gold mine in the northern Philippines was rescued after 11 days, an official said yesterday.
George Baywong, a Mines and Geosciences Bureau officer who supervised the rescue efforts, said Joseph Anayasan was pulled out of the mine in Itogon Township in Benguet Province around nightfall on Friday.
“It was miraculous,” he said of the miner’s survival.
Anayasan was immediately whisked away by his relatives to evade police, who have a standing warrant for his arrest on theft and robbery charges, Baywong said.
Anayasan was one of 10 survivors among 16 men inside the mine when floodwaters rushed in during a typhoon on Sept. 22. The bodies of the six others were recovered days earlier. Anayasan’s brother, Mario, was among three men rescued on Wednesday.
Baywong said Anayasan’s “hard life upbringing” and his physical fitness contributed to his survival.
“He may have prayed to God to let him live, promising to change,” Baywong said.
He said Anayasan was located by former miners who volunteered to rescue him in a tight spot where navy frogmen who had helped save the other miners could not reach him with their equipment.
Baywong said rescuers helped move Anayasan about 455m along a horizontal shaft. They then gave him a little food and water so he could regain some strength to climb 91m on ladders along a vertical shaft and negotiate another 212m of a horizontal tunnel to get out on the side of a mountain.
He said Anayasan’s family, worried about how the police would treat him right after coming out of the mine, took him away but promised to turn him over to authorities soon.
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