Dramatic stories of heroism and failure, including the rescue of the Texas toddler Jessica McClure and the Sago mine disaster.<\/b>
\nAfter two weeks of huddling in a flooded cave in northern Thailand, several of the 12 boys who were trapped with their soccer coach have been rescued in a harrowing extraction that could take days to complete.
Divers on Sunday began pulling the boys to safety through long, narrow passageways that are challenging for even the most skilled cave divers. With the world watching, the rescue team was racing against rising floodwaters in what has become one of the most engrossing rescue missions in recent years.
Here is a look at other underground rescue attempts \u2014 some successful, some not \u2014 that have transfixed people around the world.
A blast at a coal mine in northeast India triggered flooding from a nearby reservoir that killed hundreds of miners .
In response to a plea from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the United States, France and Switzerland rushed to deliver high-capacity pumps to drain the water, but the men were already feared dead. As one government official said at the time, it would take a miracle to save them.
Ten hours after the disaster, four bodies were removed, a grim indication of what was to come, The Associated Press reported .
There was debate about exactly how many miners were trapped. The Indian press initially said about 900 workers were in the mine, but Indian censors ordered the story suppressed, The A. P. said. A government official later told reporters that there were \u201cheavy casualties\u201d and that there were 250 to 300 miners trapped.
Government officials eventually conceded that the death toll could exceed 400, Reuters reported. Union members and mining experts said the number of miners trapped was most likely closer to 700.
The cause of the explosion is not known.
After being trapped for two and a half days in an abandoned water well in West Texas, an 18-month-old toddler emerged in a rescuer\u2019s arms, caked with dirt and wrapped in bandages.
Hundreds of workers from surrounding oil fields worked to rescue the child, Jessica McClure, who fell 22 feet while playing at the home of her aunt.
\u201cAll across the world people were watching this thing in Midland, Texas, and if they didn\u2019t get a tear in their eye, they\u2019re not human,\u201d James Shaw, who helped operate the drilling rig used to free Jessica, said at the time. \u201cI know there were tears in my eye, and I\u2019m not afraid to tell you that.\u201d
Baby Jessica, as she came to be known, did not receive any critical injuries.
Last year, in an interview with People magazine on the 30th anniversary of her rescue, Jessica \u2014 who is now married with two children and goes by Jessica McClure Morales \u2014 said she had few visible signs of her ordeal.
\u201cThere were a few times I was picked on specifically for being \u2018Baby Jessica,\u2019\u201d she told People. \u201cI had a kid that called me \u2018well-dweller\u2019 for a good couple of years.\u201d
She taught her children about the importance of kindness. \u201cThat part of my life made me the kind of mom that I am: to express to my kids that it\u2019s not right,\u201d she said. \u201cMy kids have good hearts.\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019re Alive!\u201d one newspaper headline trumpeted. \u201cMiner Miracle!\u201d another said. As newspapers rushed to press after a mine explosion in Sago, W. Va., false reports abounded that 12 of the 13 miners trapped had survived the blast.
In reality, only one man was rescued alive after being confined for more than 40 hours. Twelve others died, one from the initial explosion and 11 from carbon monoxide poisoning.
It wasn\u2019t just a few newspapers that got it wrong.
A spokesman for the Newseum, a museum about the media, told USA Today that it had examined 250 United States newspapers, and slightly more than half \u2014 including The New York Times \u2014 had published front-page stories that said the miners were alive.
Family members of the miners and a government official told reporters at the time that most of the miners had been found alive.
Bill Tucker, a member of the rescue crew, testified at a hearing that when he heard the moans of Randal McCloy Jr., the lone survivor, he turned and yelled to his fellow rescuers, \u201cThey\u2019re alive!\u201d
\u201cThat may have been the start of the miscommunication,\u201d Mr. Tucker, an assistant inspector for the West Virginia Office of Miners\u2019 Health Safety and Training, said at the hearing.
In an interview with investigators about six months after the blast, Mr. McCloy said the men had anticipated help from a machine, but that help never arrived, The A. P. reported .
\u201cI figured they\u2019d bring that machine down and would have found us, would have drilled the hole in the right spot and would have took us out of there,\u201d he said, but they didn\u2019t hear anything, adding, \u201cWe banged and banged and banged. Everyone did.\u201d
After more than two months trapped in a mine in Chile, 33 miners escaped via a capsule painted red, white and blue, the colors of their country\u2019s flag.
One miner, Juan Illanes, described his journey to freedom as being \u201clike a cruise!\u201d the BBC reported .
Claudio Yanez, the eighth miner to be rescued, applauded as he was carried away in a stretcher. His girlfriend had proposed to him in a letter sent while he was trapped.
President Sebasti\u00e1n Pi\u00f1era had staked his presidency on rescuing the miners, who were confined in a dank space 2,000 feet below the surface.
They were trapped by a cave-in and the country\u2019s mining minister said their chances of having survived were slim.
But Mr. Pi\u00f1era felt differently. \u201cI had a strong conviction, very deep inside of me, that they were alive, and that was a strong support for my actions,\u201d he said later that month.
The rescue of the last of the miners brought applause and cheers in the public square of Copiapo, Chile, and their worldwide audience \u2014 watching on television, computers and cellphones \u2014 laughed and cried.<\/p>\n

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