"Workers rescue 20 gold miners
BONANZA — Rescue workers and trapped miners frantically dug away at opposite sides of rock and mud that blocked a gold mine, finally succeeding in freeing at least 20 men. Efforts to reach five miners still missing continued Saturday."
"Rescuers locate 20 of 24 trapped in Nicaragua mine" Associated Press August 30, 2014
BONANZA, Nicaragua — Rescuers located 20 of at least 24 freelance gold miners trapped underground by a landslide in northern Nicaragua, but were not immediately able to bring them to safety on Friday.
Dogs helped locate the 20 miners, and rescue workers were laboring to get them out, said Milagros Solorzano of the ruling Sandinista Party in the community of Bonanza.
Soloranzo told local Channel 8 that the 20 miners were in a kind of cave inside the mine and have been able to communicate with rescuers. They said they didn’t know the whereabouts of the other four.
Relatives of the trapped miners gathered Friday on the margins of the rescue operation.
The slide occurred Thursday at the El Comal gold and silver mine operated by Hemco in the town of Bonanza, about 260 miles northeast of Managua.
The trapped miners are freelancers allowed to work in Hemco’s concession if they sell any gold they find to the firm, mining company spokesman Gregorio Downs said.
Downs said the company had warned miners about the danger of working in the El Comal area, especially after two miners died in a landslide there last month.
A government website reported that one of the 26 miners originally trapped had escaped Thursday and another was rescued Friday morning.
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