Welsh rescuers find fourth body

Rescuers attempting to free a group miners trapped in a flooded pit in Wales have located a fourth body.

Rescuers attempting to free a group miners trapped in a flooded pit in Wales have located a fourth body.

Police confirmed this evening that a fourth miner was found dead at the flooded mine in the Gleision Colliery near Cilybebyll in the Swansea Valley.

South Wales chief constable Peter Vaughan said that the conclusion of the rescue was “the one that none of us wanted”.

The four miners who become trapped yesterday have been named as Phillip Hill (45) from Neath, Charles Bresnan (62) David Powell (50) and Garry Jenkins (39), all from the Swansea Valley.

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The bodies have yet to be formally identified.

Rescuers had hopes that all four men may have found refuge in an air pocket following the accident but police say the search and recovery operation has now become an investigation.

The alarm was raised at 9.20am yesterday.

The men - part of a group of seven - were stranded in a tunnel 90m underground after a retaining wall holding back a body of water failed, flooding the shaft.

Of the three who escaped, one is now critically ill in hospital. The two other men who were with him emerged largely unharmed and were helping the rescue operation.

Neath MP and former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain said the families of the men were going through "hell".

PA