From the Tomb

When a reservoir broke and flooded an iron mine near Lengede, Saxony, two weeks ago, 79 workers scrambled to safety, and ten more were rescued. The remaining 40, entombed without food for ten days, were given up for dead. The giant oil drill that had bored the rescue shafts for the others was dismantled and started on its way back to The Netherlands. The crowds of reporters and onlookers drifted away. All that remained was to hold a memorial service.

Some of the survivors insisted that the rescuers continue boring exploratory shafts, using a smaller drill. Suddenly the skeptical rescue team was electrified by a series of raps on the drill bit. Over a quickly lowered phone line, word came that eleven men were alive in an abandoned gallery, 196 ft. below. Memorial services were canceled and the oil rig hurriedly recalled.

There were breathless phone conversations between the miners and their wives, some still in black mourning dresses. Food and tranquilizers were sent down. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard flew in from Bonn by helicopter and made a little "good luck" speech to the trapped men. Said he: "All German hearts are with you, in confidence that you'll soon again see the light of day."

An investigation was launched to see if there had been negligence at the mine, and the East German radio even managed to find a propaganda issue--capitalist callousness. Meanwhile, the rescue work continued. The drill had to work slowly because of the danger of a cave-in, but eventually and luckily pierced the only spot in the gallery's roof that was solid rock. Just 103 hours after the eleven were heard from, the first of the miners emerged from the "rescue bomb," a sort of torpedo-shaped elevator that had been lowered into the new shaft with two volunteer rescue workers. Fifty-seven minutes later, all eleven were miraculously out, weak but unharmed after 13 days underground.

But mining remains perilous. Within hours after the German miners were miraculously saved in Saxony, a coal dust explosion on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu killed more than 400 miners and injured hundreds of others.

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