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20 miners rescued and five still missing after cave-in

The miners were trapped for nearly two days at an unlicensed gold mine.

Nicaragua Miners Trapped AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

RESCUERS IN NICARAGUA rescued 20 miners overnight who had been trapped deep underground for nearly two days after a cave-in at an unlicensed gold mine, but five more workers were still missing.

“We give thanks to God our Lord and the Virgin Mary for having saved from death 20 artisanal miners,” First Lady Rosario Murillo, the presidential spokeswoman, told reporters.

Murillo said five miners had “not surfaced” and rescue crews were still working to locate them.

“Hopefully we can find them in the coming hours,” she said.

Nicaragua Miners Trapped A rescued miner takes off his muddied clothes after he was rescu AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The miners were pulled out one at a time using a pulley system installed late Friday near the pit where they had been trapped.

Most younger than 30, they were “pretty tired, exhausted, dehydrated, muddy and dirty,” an AFP photographer on the scene said.

They were immediately embraced by family members, who had stayed nearby since the accident, and then taken to the nearest hospital.

Triggered by downpours

There had been 28 “guiriseros,” or informal gold miners, working in the shaft when the mouth of the mine caved in because of a landslide triggered by heavy downpours, early Thursday morning.

Two workers buried near the surface had earlier managed to dig their way out after the collapse in the remote village of El Comal in northeastern Nicaragua, according to the local disaster prevention committee.

Nicaragua Miners Trapped A rescued miner, center, is greeted by another miner while being helped by a rescue worker AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Authorities had said earlier they were trying to confirm whether any miners had died, noting that the incident happened in a hard-to-reach area with poor communication.

A local TV station showed what appeared to be the body of a dead miner being recovered.

The accident happened at an artisanal mine near the town of Bonanza, which is perched on the side of a hill, in a region that is home to Nicaragua’s biggest gold mines.

Desperate relatives initially tried to dig through to the trapped miners before being stymied by the unstable terrain, news reports said.

Word of the collapse only emerged late on Thursday because the site is so remote, local disaster official Martha Lagos said.

Modern gold rush

Nicaragua Miners AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Business has boomed over the past decade for Nicaragua’s “guiriseros” as the price of gold has risen from less than $400 an ounce to more than $1,200.

They descend into old shafts that have been abandoned by conventional mining companies and look for remaining gold or dig even deeper to find new veins.

But the work can be perilous.

The scene of the collapse “is very high-risk and only they know the site because as the superficial veins of gold run out, they have to dig deeper and deeper in underground tunnels,” said Lagos.

Informal gold mining is the main source of employment in Bonanza, where officials estimate there are 6,000 “guiriseros.”

Many of them have migrated there from other parts of the country in a modern-day gold rush.

Nicaragua Miners Trapped AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Bonanza’s population has jumped in the past decade from around 8,000 people to 40,000, said Lagos.

Locals can earn $1,500 to $3,000 a month selling gold to foreign mining companies — a relative fortune in Nicaragua.

Some informal miners work independently, while others are organised into officially authorised cooperatives.

Bonanza forms one point of the Central American country’s so-called “mining triangle” in the remote Autonomous North Atlantic Region.

Nicaragua Miners Trapped AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The latest accident comes four years after 33 workers were trapped deep inside Chile’s San Jose copper and gold mine for more than two months, a drama that captured worldwide attention.

It took rescuers 17 days to drill a small shaft to establish contact, and more than two months of painstaking effort to open a passage wide enough to pull them out one by one.

- © AFP, 2014

Read: Three charged with manslaughter over disaster that killed 301 miners>

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    Mute Eamonn Hughes
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:15 AM

    Any chance of an update on concerned citizen millionaire banker brother of FG TD who you claimed yesterday was a non political small business owner? No didn’t think so.

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    Mute Stephen Brady
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:44 AM

    Good aul Hugh deleted my comment yesterday as I outed him. Good man Hugh.

    39
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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:56 AM

    *yawn*

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    Mute pjm
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:01 PM

    Neal what’s yawn about this story, it was plastered all over the media yesterday that’s he was a small business man who was apolitical. He was lying about both these issues, he was the CEO for a banking fund and he is the brother of ex FG TD, Seymour Crawford.

    34
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    Mute Mark Byrne
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:04 PM

    Nothing yawn about it. Downright deceitful!!

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    Mute Tweety McTweeter
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:22 PM

    I am outraged!

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    Mute Scottie Delaney
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:26 AM

    Can we have additional reporting done on your article regarding Mary Lou and this concerned citizen from yeaterday please. This is what you need to be covering not some elitist boarding school in the US.

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    Mute Brinster
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:04 PM

    Exactly.

    What we need is a witch hunt against the private citizen who dared to criticise SF.

    We need to know his name, his family history, his occupation and as many details of his personal life as possible.

    We need to show people that dissent will not be tolerated.

    We need to print his name as often as possible to try to intimidate others into silence.

    WE NEED TO SHOW – IN CAPS LOCK – THAT WE ARE A BUNCH OF SCREAMING WHINGING BABIES WHO ARE CHRONICALLY INCAPABLE OF RESPONDING TO CRITICISM WITHOUT ASSASSINATING THE CHARACTER OF THE PERSON CRITICISING OUR POLICIES.

    That’ll show ‘em.

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    Mute Donna Moss
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:13 PM

    Calm down ffs you will give yourself an ulcer. Politics is a dirty game and this was up there in the top five but SF are no strangers to doing the odd dirty trick.

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    Mute Brinster
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:21 PM

    A private citizen expressing an opinion publicly is not a dirty trick, Donna.

    Printing his name, occupation, background and – most disgustingly – family details online IS a dirty trick.

    It sends a very clear message of intimidation. “Dare to criticise us, and our fanatics will expose you”.

    Shameful.

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    Mute Donna Moss
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:31 PM

    Are you saying he just happened to be walking by at that time? Did he not seek her out to confront her? Is he a FG supporter? Connected to FG?

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    Mute Brinster
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:41 PM

    I’ve no idea, Donna.

    He could be the worst ***** in all of Christendom for all I know.

    But what I do know is shooting the messenger, playing the man and not the ball and refusing to engage in any discussions or debates with someone who disagrees with you paints SF supporters in a very bad light.

    Ad hominem attacks make SF supporters look like whinging toddlers.

    Why not point out where he was wrong?

    Try to convince us where his argument was weak?

    Show us that there is a better way?

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    Mute Meehawwl O'Buachailla
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:42 PM

    Spot on Brinster. A knee-capping will be next.

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    Mute Donna Moss
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:46 PM

    Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t vote SF no matter what they promised. Your man was a bit of a knobend. Mary loo is like Adams all talk and nothing else just the same old mantra.

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    Mute Diarmuid Doran
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    Feb 20th 2016, 7:04 PM

    Btinster , do you really think that Hugh would report the truth , that Concerned Citizen is actually Concerned Hedgefund Manager and FG TD’s brother ? It’s above his (FG) pay grade.

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    Mute Richard Cynical
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:38 AM

    two weeks in a row, I won’t get my head out the door

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    Mute IrishGravyTrain
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:55 AM

    3 in a row and you qualify to write articles on here.

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    Mute Meehawwl O'Buachailla
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    Feb 20th 2016, 1:18 PM

    Lucinda Creighton will be watching you next week. Locked up for life if you get three!

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    Mute Richard Cynical
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    Feb 20th 2016, 2:26 PM

    a whole article, now I’m really going to try

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    Mute Diarmuid Doran
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    Feb 20th 2016, 6:59 PM

    Richard , it’s a trick to quiten you down.They did the same to Captain Adebayor , haven’t heard from him since. Time to change your moniker from Richard Cynical to Richard Compliant.

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    Mute Suzie Sunshine
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    Feb 20th 2016, 7:30 PM

    Ah Captain A had some great comments , very witty .

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    Mute @mdmak33
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    Feb 20th 2016, 11:54 AM

    That “concerned citizen” was a dirty trick by fg,labour. They will pay for it in GE.

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    Mute Brinster
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:09 PM

    Yeah – and hijacking every other story because someone dared to criticise Mary Lou doesn’t make you look like a whinging, screaming toddler at all.

    Maybe you could try to defend the policies, rather than attack the messenger?

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    Mute Luke Sarpish
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:11 PM

    His Brown Thomas leather gloves and blue scarf kind of gave it away for me.

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    Mute Turlough O' Connor
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:01 PM

    Id like to see the journo covering that fake FG supporter who went on the attack at Mary Lou ….come on Hugh

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    Mute Donna Moss
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:07 PM

    I will not be voting FG after that episode yesterday. If you can’t get votes fairly then you don’t deserve them.

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    Mute Kieran OKeeffe
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:54 PM

    If he was a plant,it’s another own goal by FG..but in fairness to ML..she engaged with him once he said he wasn’t a journalist..

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    Mute Brinster
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    Feb 20th 2016, 1:56 PM

    Mary Lou engaged and fair play to her. It’s the SF activists who screamed blue must and immediately started the witch hunt that I have the issue with. Demanding to know who he was, what’s his family history, publishing his name for dating to speak his mind. Whinging toddlers the lot of them.

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    Mute Brinster
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    Feb 20th 2016, 1:56 PM

    *Blue murder

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    Mute Meehawwl O'Buachailla
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    Feb 20th 2016, 12:48 PM

    The shinnerbots don’t like it up ‘em! Been a bad few days on the campaign trail, Jorry making a fool of himself with Sean Duignan….sounds like an email went out from IRA HQ this morning saying “Attack every comments board you can find”. It’s actually very funny to see.

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    Mute Suzie Sunshine
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    Feb 20th 2016, 7:35 PM

    I notice Eugene hasn’t commented so he must be still sleeping off his hangover !

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