Rescue workers on Saturday said that all 46 miners trapped underground in a flooded mine shaft for nearly two days in southern Russia were alive. None of the miners were seriously injured.

The miners were working some 800 meters (2,625 feet) when water from a subterranean lake on Thursday leaked into a shaft above them, blocking their way to the surface, according to Col. Viktor Shkareda, head of the regional emergency department.

A two-person rescue that had gone down into the mine reached the pitface where the miners were trapped. The rescuers saw and spoke with the miners after they had been located. Efforts to bring the miners to the surface were underway.

There were 71 miners working in the Zapadnaya mine in the Rostov-on-Don region, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, when the accident happened, Shkareda said. He said 25 miners managed to escape to other pits and reach the surface after the leak filled several shafts.

Electricity in the mine was shut off, and the miners have low batteries and no food, Shkareda said.

Trucks were dumping hundreds of cubic meters (thousands of cubic feet) of earth and rock into the mine in an attempt to plug the leak while two teams of rescuers were trying to carve tunnels from adjacent mines.

Regional governor Vladimir Chub said that the teams were unable to use heavy equipment and that the manual labor to dig the tunnels could take up to 48 hours, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The trapped miners have little air, and the rescue teams were attempting to make special ventilation shafts.

According to ITAR-Tass news agency, it was the second such accident at the Zapadnaya mine this year. It said water flooded the mine in February, but there were no people inside at the time.

Accidents are common in the Russian coal industry, and miners stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety standards. According to the Independent Coal Miners' Union, 68 miners were killed on the job last year and 98 in 2001.

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