The coal miners emerged alive Wednesday after rescuers had worked tirelessly to blast a tunnel through solid rock. One of the trapped miners died underground and one remained missing, emergency officials told Dow Jones.

One of the rescuers told Dow Jones the rescued miners were found in the northern part of the mine and were all lying together. They had climbed up an incline in the shaft to keep above the icy water from the inundation.

The one miner still missing had left the others to try and find a way out of the mine. Rescuers were continuing to search for him.

The mine was inundated by an underground lake 800 metres below the surface last week and emergency workers stopped the flow of water into the mine on Tuesday. Hundreds of tons of rock, soil and reinforced concrete pillars had been dumped into the shaft to stop the flood.

The trapped miners were split into two groups of 33 and 13, with the larger group found 36 hours after the inundation occurred.

In another disaster in far-east Russia five miners were killed in a mine explosion in the Primorye region.