Emotions below the surface

AUSTRALIA - Night has fallen in Beaconsfield, darkened further by a chill rain from the south and deep clouds that thickened during the day over the valley following the silver run of the Tamar River north from the Tasmanian city of Launceston.

On the verandah of the Exchange Hotel a handful of locals chat as the last light fades. Up the street the lights stay on at the brick Uniting Church, where the doors remain open 24 hours a day for the steady trickle of people who pass by the hand-drawn sign calling for "prayer for our miners" to seek divine intervention.

Little else stirs in the road that winds through farms and vineyards to briefly become Beaconsfield's main street before twisting on to Beauty Pt and Greens Beach in Narawntapu National Park.

Cyn's weatherboard Olde Corner Store is up for sale, the flowers are still bright from Anzac Day at the war memorial in RSL Park, and Williams IGA Supermarket, Thomas' Goldfield Meats and Pete's Hardware have locked their doors for the night.

But on the low rise above the town, a spotlight on the A-frame shaft tower of the Beaconsfield gold mine glares down on a drama that has gripped the world.

Almost 1km down, and somewhere below the police station, locals reckon, Todd Russell, 34, and Brant Webb, 37, remain trapped in a steel cage measuring 2m by 1.2m by 1.5m.

On this dreary Thursday night their colleagues begin final stages of a rescue that yesterday ran into its 11th day. At 8pm, the 1.7 tonne head of a machine called a raise borer begins eating into the solid rock encasing Russell and Webb, turning it to dust as it edges forward centimetre by centimetre, vibration levels monitored constantly to ensure its progress does not spark another fatal tremor.

Mine authorities will not estimate how long it will take to free the two men, beyond the rule-of-thumb 48 hours suggested when it was announced the raise borer would be used to tunnel through to their tiny chamber. But yesterday morning it appeared likely that Russell and Webb would spend another night below ground. As they sleep, joke, listen to messages of support, eat yoghurt and - finally, on Thursday - chicken sandwiches, a tsunami of emotion, politics, law and business is rising around them.

Even as the raise borer grinds its way forward, the first accusations of blame and mismanagement are surfacing, the duck-shoving has begun and the future of the mine has become more uncertain in a town that relies on it for survival.

When Russell and Webb emerge to international cheers and the certainty of vast sums for their stories, the mine will close until investigations into the accident that killed 44-year-old miner Larry Knight are completed. Other Tasmanian mines are discussing options with their workers, including early annual leave to provide work for Beaconsfield men laid off by the disaster.

The Tasmanian Government has also set up a special task force to steer the economic and social recovery of a region in which 2000 people depend heavily on mining. Tourism and farming provide other jobs, but not enough.

Many people already commute the 45 minutes down the West Tamar Highway to Launceston to work.

Until Russell and Webb are brought to the surface, most of this will be subdued. There is a strong sense that nothing should distract attention from the plight of the two miners, nor deepen the grief of Beaconsfield for Knight, well known and liked in the district.

Such is the sense of community that Knight's family, dealing with their own loss, will not bury the miner until his two friends are safe.

It is an astonishing story of survival, wrapped in the remarkable endurance of Russell and Webb, the ingenuity and determination of rescuers devising a world-first method of rescue on the run, and the emotion that has captured the world.

Gerry Anderson, the creator of the 1960s puppet show Thunderbirds Are Go, was so moved by the stories he saw on British TV that he relayed his encouragement to Russell and Webb through ABC radio in Tasmania, hoping for the same kind of happy ending he always wrote into his scripts.

He also recalled one episode, set in Australia, in which the Thunderbirds team buried through solid rock to rescue children trapped in an old mine.

Notes have been passed to the miners, including one from Webb's father John, reading "We're all here mate. Not long now."

John Webb later answered reporters who asked if his son would remain a miner: "I'll cut his feet off at the ankles, mate. He's not putting me through this again."

The local Launceston Examiner ran three pages of messages from well-wishers, from Prime Minister John Howard to a Grade 5 student at nearby Trevallyn Primary School signing himself only as Sam. Howard declared Russell and Webb's survival "a wonderful expression of the Australian spirit". Sam said simply: "Dear Miners. I hope you get out soon happy and safely."

Despite rising confidence that the pair would be saved, officials yesterday continued to warn that the rescue was far from over, and that the final drilling through 12m of rock, below the cage and then up to it, was the most dangerous. A wrong move, or a new tremor, could trigger another collapse.

This ground is well known to miners. Shortly after it was settled as Cabbage Tree Hill in the 1850s, gold was discovered in a quartz-carbonate-sulphide vein that in 36 years from 1877 produced 840,000 ounces of the precious metal.

But as shafts passed depths of 250m, water began seeping into the mine and technology could not drive down to the 900m required. Flooding closed the operation in 1914. In 1999 the mine re-opened and pushed deep into the earth to follow the vein.

On Anzac Day Russell, Webb, Knight and 14 others began work.

Webb is a Queenslander, growing up in Bowen in the north of the state who married his high school sweetheart, Rachel, in 1988. She told the Townsville Bulletin of her first meeting with the school rugby league star: "I couldn't believe my luck when he noticed me too. I fell in love with him straight away."

He has worked at Beaconsfield for five years, a keen sailor who once skippered a prawn trawler, a hunter who often went shooting with close friend Russell, and a football nut whose jokes about footy scores have become one of the enduring images of the rescue.

Webb's 18-year-old twins, Zoe and Zach, have been at the mine waiting. Zach told the Examiner his father would want bacon, eggs and a beer as soon as he emerges. Zoe added: "We'll all cry when we see mum bend down and hug dad."

Russell is also a family man, married to Caroline and father of Trent, 11, Maddison, 9, and Liam, 5. He was born and raised in Beaconsfield, a big man with tattoos and a goatee, but known as a gentle teetotaller and a local AFL star and volunteer fireman.

At 9.23pm, at 925m below the surface, a tremor measuring 2.2 on the Richter scale rumbled through the vein as Russell, Webb and Knight prepared a barricade for blasting. Fourteen colleagues raced to a safety chamber. Knight was killed, his body found two days later by the camera of a remote-controlled borer working slowly through fallen rock.

Russell and Webb were pinned in their cage, saved by a slab of rock that fell across its top. Most rescuers believed they had also been killed but, surviving on courage, determination and a trickle of water, they were found late on Sunday. At 7.22pm, a brief press release flashed around the world: "A short time ago rescuers at the Beaconsfield mine believe they have located the two miners missing since last Tuesday night. Indications are that the two men are alive."

They have since been linked to rescuers by a tunnel through which food, drinks, an inflatable mattress, blankets, lights, iPods, notes and messages have been passed by rescuers toiling in 35C heat. And since Thursday night, a 1m escape tunnel has been boring towards them.

On the surface, more than the overwhelming relief of family and friends await Russell and Webb. Doctors say that at least some medical attention will be required; psychologists have warned of likely serious reactions and trauma once the crisis has passed.

The media is waiting, a tight crush of cameras and reporters that surrounds the mine entrance in an electronic shantytown of satellite dishes, campervans - and chequebooks.

Competition for the rights to the story of the ordeal is already intensifying, with reports of initial offers of A$500,000 ($600,000) for interviews and specials.

And an avalanche of recriminations and consequences is waiting to be unleashed. Official industrial and coronial inquiries have already been announced, the owners of the mine - placed under administration in 2001 - have suspended trading on the stock exchange, and their future is under new clouds with reports that financial difficulties could lead to the winding up of the company.

The Government is defending its regulation of mining in the state against attacks on a system that at present places safety largely in the hands of a system of self-regulation, and reports that at least two complaints had been made against the Beaconsfield mine in the past year.

More serious allegations have been made in the Australian, which reported claims that the disaster was precipitated by the failure to leave sufficient natural rock pillars in tunnels, inadequate routine safety analyses, and the management's "state of denial" about links between blasting and other mining activity and a spate of small earthquakes.

But for the moment, all that matters is Russell and Webb.