Trapped miner saved after 7 days

BOKOD, Benguet, Philippines – Incessant prayers and offerings worked yesterday when rescuers dug out a 33-year-old small-scale miner trapped in a tunnel here for a week, authorities said.

Since Aug. 3, miner Felipe Pilmaco had been trapped in the dark tunnel in Sitio Coros, Barangay Bila, surviving on food and oxygen and communicating via a cellular phone passed on through a galvanized pipe inserted through the rock, boulders and wet mud.