ZENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Exhausted, dusty, but happy to be alive, 29 miners were pulled out one by one Friday from a trouble-plagued coal mine that collapsed a day earlier in central Bosnia. They left behind five men, presumed dead, under rubble deep underground and beyond the reach of rescuers.
Emergency workers had dug through more than 330 feet of collapsed mine tunnels to reach the trapped men.
Families of those who were left behind broke down in tears as authorities closed the pit entrance.
‘‘We could not reach that group of people,’’ rescue worker Amir Arnaut said. ‘‘We could only reach the first group.’’
Officials said that an investigation will be launched to determine the cause of the accident, but they suggested it was linked to a 3.5 magnitude earthquake that hit the town of Zenica Thursday afternoon, Bosnia’s seismologists said. The tremor caused a pressure burst and a gas blast that collapsed the mine, officials said.
It was the third incident at the Zenica pits this year, underscoring the vulnerability of the mines in Bosnia and elsewhere in the Balkans, which are generally poorly secured and where miners work with outdated equipment.
Twenty-six miners were taken to a hospital, six of them badly hurt, but none suffered life-threatening injuries, doctors said.