Work is underway to rescue the more than three dozen people who have been trapped underground since Sunday.

Slowly but surely, 39 workers at Totten Mine near Sudbury, Ontario are reemerging after spending more than 24 hours trapped underground. As of Tuesday afternoon, 33 of the 39 miners have resurfaced, most climbing 1000 metres, or one and a half times the height of the CN Tower.

After what Vale, the mine's Brazillian company is calling "an incident" the conveyance system used to bring employees up and down the mine was damaged and shut down. 

Vale says the miners have food and water, and access to medicine. 

The company was hoping by Monday night all 39 miners will return to the surface using the ladder system but as of Tuesday afternoon there are six remaining.

This mine employs roughly four thousand people and has been in operation for more than one hundred years. 

 

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with files from the Canadian Press