[Breaking news update, published at 8:32 a.m. ET]
Fifteen of the 17 miners who were stuck in an elevator underground at a central New York salt mine Wednesday night have been rescued, according to Marcia Winch, spokeswoman for the Tompkins County emergency response department.
“The basket’s going down for its final trip. Everyone’s fine, and things are going well,” Winch said Thursday morning.
“About 10 [p.m.], the 17 were going into the mine to start their shift,” said Mark Klein, spokesman for the mine’s operator, Cargill. “At about 900 feet, they got stuck.. We’ve been in constant contact with the 17,” Klein said.
[Original story, published at 7:30 a.m. ET]
Rescue efforts were underway Thursday morning for 17 miners who were stuck in an elevator below ground at salt mine in central New York, an emergency official said.
The miners were stuck in an elevator at a Cargill rock salt mine near Lansing, New York, according to Marcia Lynch, public information officer with Tompkins County’s emergency response department.
Emergency workers have made contact with the miners via a radio, and they all appear to be uninjured, said Jessica Verfuss, the emergency department’s assistant director.
Crews have managed to provide heat packs and blankets to the miners so that they can keep warm during an operation to rescue them, Verfuss said.
Details about what led to the workers’ entrapment in the elevator weren’t immediately available.
The mine, near New York’s Cayuga Lake, processes salt that is used for treat roads for wintry weather. It produces about 2 million tons of salt that is shipped to more than 1,500 places in the northeastern United States, Cargill’s website says.
The rock salt mine is one of three operated by Cargill, with the other two being in Louisiana and Ohio.