ITOGON, BENGUET—Six small-scale miners rescued after being trapped for a week inside a flooded mine shaft here owe their lives to over 100 people who crawl and swim through dark tunnels in shifts round the clock.

Penetrating crevices is not an easy thing to do for these rescuers, mostly miners themselves and divers from the Philippine Navy, said a Benguet Corp. engineer. “The tunnel is filled with holes and huge stones that block the pathway.”

The tunnel floors are smooth only for certain stretches of the portal. Then the floors turn rugged and uneven. Most of these tunnels are interlaced, forming a virtual maze where the uninitiated can disappear easily, the engineer said.

But miners have been trekking through these old portals for years, hoping to stumble on minerals that their old stewards had missed, said Fred Jacinto, a former president of a local miners’ association.

“We dig [out new] holes [through the old tunnel walls] wherever we find ore,” he said.

But they all rely on old tunnel maps, which rescue workers have been using for leads to the trapped miners.

Logbook led to survivors

George Baywong, a government engineer supervising the rescue efforts, said searchers were relying on a 1986 map used by Benguet Corp.

“It has been years since we stopped operating and we blocked off other pathways [for safety]. But since small-scale miners entered the abandoned mining area they may have created their own pathways,” the Benguet Corp. engineer said.

But Baywong said the miners also logged their objectives and locations every time they entered the portal, and that helped rescuers to track them.

The rescuers reached four survivors on Monday night through Tuesday morning because they pushed through tunnels where these miners said they would be exploring a week ago, based on a logbook, Baywong said.

Small-scale miners have also been responsible for setting the right direction.

“It takes us about half an hour to reach the shafts where we go down to our work areas. But for people who are not familiar with the place, it takes them about two hours,” Jacinto said.

Father rescued son

One of these miners, Mario Himmayod, was able to rescue his son Jayson.

He said: “It’s very dark down there. I swam through the water. I then heard shouts. I made sure that they were there. Then I went back to call the Navy divers.”

“There’s a crevice there that the water didn’t reach. That’s where they stayed,” Mario said.

After a few days, the rescue efforts became organized. Rescuers set up teams from Level 400 down to Level 700, the lowest section where the miners have been trapped.

One team works in shifts as search parties. Another team is in charge of a rope and pulley system that hauls up survivors. The survivors are then relayed to another team at Level 400 that would bring them out of the tunnel and on to the waiting medical teams.