Of 13 miners trapped in a crumbling Russian coal mine, 11 have been found alive, and one is confirmed dead, the Emergencies Ministry said today.
"Eleven are alive, but one is in a serious condition. One is dead, and one is unaccounted for," a spokesman said.
The miners have been trapped since last Thursday evening when an underground lake burst into their mineshaft.
They were working some 2,625ft below ground when water from a subterranean lake leaked into a shaft above them, blocking their way to the surface. On Saturday, 33 other miners who had been trapped by the flood were rescued.
There were 71 miners working in the mine in the Rostov-on-Don region, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) south of Moscow, when the accident occurred. Twenty-five miners managed to escape to other pits and reach the surface after several shafts were flooded.
Rescuers at the Zapadnaya mine in Novoshakhtinsk yesterday plugged a hole through which water had flowed into the shaft. Hundreds of tons of rock, soil and reinforced concrete pillars had been dumped into the shaft to seal the leak, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
It was the second such accident at the Zapadnaya mine this year. Water flooded the mine in February, but there were no people inside at the time.
Meanwhile, five miners have been killed after a methane blast ripped through their shaft in Russia's Far East. "There was a methane blast this morning, when 71 miners were underground," an emergencies ministry said. "Five were killed, and all the others were rescued but one is in critical condition."
The coal mine is in the town of Partizansk, some 130 km (81 miles) from the city of Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast.
Accidents are common in the Russian coal industry, and miners stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety standards. According to the Independent Coal Miners' Union, 68 miners were killed on the job last year and 98 in 2001.