Six Found Alive in West German Coal Mine

Six miners buried 330 feet underground for more than two days after an explosion in a coal shaft near this West German town were found alive early today.

Hesse State radio said the six, who were discovered by rescuers in a pocket of air, were exhausted but otherwise appeared not to be seriously injured.

They were among 57 miners in the shaft when the explosion occurred Wednesday.

“No one had reckoned that we could find any more of the 57 miners alive,” the town’s jubilant mayor, Bernd Hessler, said at the scene.

Hessler, a member of the rescue team, said board members of the Preussen Elektra utility concern, which owns the brown coal mine, said the six miners “were in good shape.”

The surviving miners were found in the early morning hours by weary emergency workers who had recovered the bodies of 36 miners.

The survival of the miners was cause for rejoicing in this small mining-dependent town and in the rest of West Germany, where flags had been hung at half staff in grieving reaction to one of the nation’s worst industrial disasters.

Emergency workers were pressing ahead with renewed hope of finding the remaining 15 miners unaccounted for, spokesmen said today.

On Friday, relatives of the dead paid their last respects at the local sports hall.

Rescue workers said earlier it could take days to find all the bodies. Their work was hindered by continuing high levels of toxic carbon monoxide gas below ground.