No sign of life from missing Nicaragua miners

MANAGUA: Rescuers said Monday there were no signs of life from eight miners missing after a cave-in at a Nicaraguan gold mine, but continued their search after saving 20 trapped workers.
"There's no sign of them... but it's difficult to give a prognosis. We will continue the search until we find them. No one will rest," said Marcela Castillo of Nicaraguan mining firm Hemco, which is taking part in the four-day-old rescue effort.
Rescuers have made 25 trips into the mine, where the unstable earth forces workers to "walk on tiptoe," local government representative Lumberto Campbell told TV station Canal 4.
He said rescue workers would not give up until they reached the spot where the missing miners' colleagues said they were working when a landslide, triggered by heavy downpours, caused the mine to cave in on 30 people early Thursday.
Two of the trapped miners dug themselves back to the surface. Another 20 were hauled out one by one after 30 hours trapped inside the mine.
The mine shaft, in the remote village of El Comal, was abandoned more than 80 years ago by the foreign mining firms that operate in Nicaragua's gold-rich northeast.
But it was reopened by "guiriseros," or small-scale independent miners, a dangerous occupation that has boomed over the past decade as the price of gold has risen from less than US$400 an ounce to more than US$1,200. – AFP