Most of the 17 miners trapped in an elevator shaft at a New York salt mine have been rescued, and crews were continuing to work early Thursday to free the remaining miners, officials said.
The Tompkins County Department of Emergency Response said in a Facebook post that 12 of the 17 miners had been rescued.
The miners became trapped about 800 to 900 feet down the elevator shaft at around midnight local time, when a lift malfunctioned at Cargill’s Cayuga Salt Mine in Lansing, a town of about 11,000 people north of the city of Ithaca in central New York, the department said.
Emergency crews have been in contact with the miners via radio and there were no known medical emergencies, local broadcaster WTEN-TV reported.
Technical rescue experts and equipment were summoned to the scene to help rescue the workers, emergency officials said.
According to Cargill’s website, the Lansing mine processes approximately 2 million tons of road salt that is shipped to more than 1,500 locations throughout the northeast United States.