Rescuers 'close' to trapped Ecuadoran miners

Rescuers worked frantically Tuesday in hopes of opening a path to two miners missing for five days in the collapse of an Ecuadoran gold mine that killed two of their colleagues.

"They reached an opening above the gallery where the miners are presumed to be, but it is blocked by wood and rocks," said an official with MINESADCO, the operator of the Casa Negra mine.

"We have to clear the way to get into the channel that the miners were supposed to be exploring when the cave-in occurred," the official said.

Officially, rescuers remain upbeat. "We are keeping up our hopes that they are alive," Non-Renewable Resources Minister Carlos Pareja, who is at the mine overseeing operations, said earlier.

The miners have been missing since the cave-in early Friday, days after Chile completed its historic, successful rescue of 33 miners who had been stuck underground in the San Jose mine for a record period of nearly 10 weeks.

Cesar Lopez, a MINESADCO technician, reported that the rescuers had "a visual toward the area where it is thought that the comrades might be, and the distance to reach them is about six meters (20 feet)."

The distance may be short, but the diggers estimate it will take at least 10 hours of hard work to break through.

Ecuadoran rescuers have been working around the clock since the accident in their attempt to reach Angel Vera, 29, a machine operator, and worker Pedro Mendoza, 28.

Two other men -- Vera's older brother Walter, 31, the shift leader, and Paul Aguirre, 21 -- died after the Friday accident blocked the passage to the exits of the Casa Negra gold and silver mine in the coastal town of Portovelo, 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Quito.
Vera and Aguirre's bodies were recovered on Saturday.

Rescuers have been unable to contact the two missing men, but believe they are in a section of the mine 150 meters (500 feet) below the surface, in a gallery about 60 meters wide and two meters high.

Pareja said that there were no indications that the miners were buried under the rubble during in the Friday accident.

"We have not yet detected signs of life, but neither have we detected other negative signs such as a bad smell," Pareja told reporters.

There is also water and an air draft in the area, he said. "Every minute is very important," he said. "We are doing everything humanly possible" to reach the trapped men.

One rescue worker was injured on Monday when the muddy ground in a mine gallery a team was working in began to give way. The rescuers "fled of the area, and one of them tripped, so he was evacuated with bruises," a MINESADCO official told AFP.

MINESADCO manager Fernando Velez told AFP Walter Vera had three children, including a 22 day-old infant. He had been a miner for the past decade.

Angel Vera, 29, is a machine operator who joined the company two years ago and also has three children.

About 100 people are employed at the mine, according to MINESADCO.

Aguirre and Mendoza are Peruvian temporary workers, both of whom had been working at the mine for less than a month.

Portovelo, established in the 16th century by the Spanish on the western slopes of the Andes, has a population of 14,000 and is one of the main mining centers in the province.

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