Trapped miners endure agonising wait

Beaconsfield gold mine. Ian Waldie / Getty Images

Wedged inside a cramped cage that saved their lives and drinking rancid water nearly a kilometre underground, Brant Webb and Todd Russell wanted just one thing when rescuers finally made contact: bacon and eggs.

That wish will have to wait while rescuers who fear a second deadly rock collapse in Tasmania state's Beaconsfield Gold Mine drill carefully through 12m of rock to free them from their pitch-black prison.

But the miners were passed biscuits, tablets and a protein drink down a 100mm pipe. Mine manager Matthew Gill said the miners were overjoyed to receive food which would buy them time.

On the surface the tight-knit community living around the mine was still rejoicing yesterday at news that the two men were alive, six days after a small earthquake triggered a rock slide that killed one of their workmates and sealed them underground.

Mr Russell's first words to his rescuers included an expletive and were short and to the point.

"It's [extremely] cold and cramped in here. Get us out," he said.

Those two brief sentences unleashed a wave of relief over both men's families and the miners who had toiled to reach them since Tuesday.

But the euphoria had lulled somewhat as rescuers focused on reaching the pair, and their friends and family came to terms with the men's ordeal.

A trauma specialist told the Age that the survivors were likely to be suffering multiple health problems, including pressure sores, muscle wastage, joint stiffness and mental and physical exhaustion and would also be susceptible to lung infections.

Many of the locals gathered at the mine site on Sunday night, predicting the men would be free by morning.

But then came word the rescue was at least 48 hours away.

"Please don't hold us to this 48-hour clock," union official Bill Shorten told AAP. "That's just sort of a best guess, a little bit of optimism and fingers and toes crossed."

Members of the two men's families visited the site in the morning for a briefing from management, displaying an occasional smile but appearing mostly anxious.
Mr Shorten said doctors had talked to the men throughout the night.

"It's only a small cavity where these blokes are and when you're sending a drill through 12 metres of hard rock you want to make sure it comes out the other side exactly just so ... It's like threading the eye of a needle," Mr Shorten told Southern Cross radio.

The news the two miners were still alive came just hours after dozens of Beaconsfield residents gathered at a local church to pray for them on Sunday.

"Beaconsfield is the centre of a mining miracle," said Mr Shorten.

The full story of their survival has yet to emerge but Mr Russell, 34, and Mr Webb, 37, apparently were saved by a slab of rock that fell on to the protective cage of their cherry picker and prevented smaller rocks slamming into them. Enough oxygen has got through to keep them alive.

On Sunday afternoon, rescuers managed to drill a tiny tunnel all the way to the place where they were trapped and fed a local media cameraman's microphone through the narrow hole for communication.

"When a man rushed through the door, covered in mud and crying, we thought that was the bad news," said Michael Kelly, Webb's father-in-law.

"He burst into the room and fell down on his knees in front of [Webb's wife] Rachael and sobbed, 'He's alive'."

The joy in Beaconsfield was tempered by sympathy for the family of Larry Knight, crushed in the initial rock collapse.

His body was retrieved on Thursday.

- AGENCIES