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By Natalie Venegas
Weekend Reporter
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Dozens of people were rescued from a coal mine in Pennsylvania on Monday after getting stuck underground during a tour.
On Monday, during a tour of the Lackawanna Coal Mine, located in McDade Park in Scranton, over 50 people were rescued after getting stuck several hundred feet below ground. According to The Scranton Times-Tribune, county communications director Pat McKenna said there was a mechanical issue with the rail car, which brought it to a halt, causing the evacuation.
Tour participants were brought up to the surface in groups of three or four using emergency escape cages that were already set up at the site. No injuries were reported.
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Newsweek has reached out to McKenna's office and the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour via email for comment.
Mine foreman Edmund Neidlinger, who controlled the winch that lifted the emergency cage up and down, told local news station WNEP that it took about two hours to bring everyone to safety.
"People respected what we had to do. A lot of the kids had fun; they want to go back down and do it again, Neidlinger said.
Neidlinger, who has been working at the mine for eight years, said he never had to use the emergency escape, adding that the last time it was used was over a decade ago when a car also had an issue.
"It was about 15 years ago that they broke an axle on the car, and they had to use it the last time. I'm here eight years and never had to use it," he told the news station.
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According to the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour's website, participants travel 300 feet beneath the earth's surface to the once abandoned and now restored hard coal mine in an effort to see the area's workers that powered the Industrial Revolution.
The Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour will be closed to the public pending repairs, as mine operators say they will determine what caused the mechanical issue.
In early April, six miners were rescued after being stranded by Taiwan's most powerful earthquake in a quarter century, while 64 of their co-workers still awaited assistance.
The miners, who had been working in a quarry in eastern Taiwan's Hualien County, were rescued three at a time via helicopter after being trapped for nearly 24 hours in the Zhonghe Mine Heren Mining area.
A 7.2 magnitude quake in Hualien City struck a day earlier, killing nine people and injuring at least 1,050 more.
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