Twenty workers dramatically rescued from a collapsed Nicaraguan gold mine joined frantic efforts to find eight comrades still missing after the cave-in.
The rescued men were hauled out of the unlicensed gold mine one-by-one late on Friday after being buried in a collapse at the unlicensed pit a day earlier.
After speaking with relatives of the trapped miners, officials reported at first that five were still trapped.
They later determined that three more miners - who did not have relatives in the area to report their disappearance to officials - had failed to return from the mine after the mishap.
After being treated in hospital overnight, several of the men were discharged on Saturday and swiftly joined efforts to locate nine men still feared trapped.
"The boys spent the night under observation in the hospital, where they were treated for dehydration," said Gregorio Rocha, a spokesman for the mining company HEMCO which is involved in rescue efforts.
"The hospital treatment gave them the energy and some are now working to find the missing," he told AFP.
Rocha described the rescue of the 20 workers on Friday as a "great achievement," although he lamented that they have failed so far to rescue the others.
The workers were evacuated from the collapsed mine using a pulley system.
An AFP photographer at the scene described the survivors as "exhausted, dehydrated, muddy and dirty".
They were immediately embraced by family members and taken to the nearest hospital.
Pictures from the scene showed some of the miners, wrapped in blankets, lying on stretchers or the backs of trucks surrounded by ecstatic loved ones.
The accident happened at a mine near the town of Bonanza, which is perched on the side of a hill in a region that is home to Nicaragua's biggest gold mines.
The mine caved in because of a landslide triggered by heavy downpours, early on Thursday morning.
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