Eight Swiss potholers emerged safe and sound on Saturday from a cave in eastern France where they spent three days trapped by flooding.
Rescuers used dynamite to unblock the flood waters.
The eight, seven students in their 20s and the leader of the inexperienced cave expedition troop, rose through the entrance to the cavity and daylight to cheers and sighs of relief from over 250 rescuers who worked day and night since last Wednesday.
"I can declare them all in very good form," Alain Gehin, a local government official, said as the group of students from a Zurich social work college reached the surface.
The five men and three women walked out of the mouth of the cave covered in mud, accompanied by the potholing experts who went in to fetch them. They were taken to a makeshift medical camp nearby for further checks, a shower and to meet relatives.
Rescuers said they would then be transported from the cave area in Goumois across the border to the Delemont hospital in the Swiss canton of Jura.
The novice Swiss potholers were caught off-guard by a sudden rainstorm and a surge in floodwaters on Wednesday evening and forced to take refuge on a rock ledge about 100 meters from the mouth of the cave, where they spent the next 72 hours.
Divers swam through the water channel which had trapped them in the cave to bring food, drinking water, blankets and heating equipment on Thursday morning but the final rescue was held off while teams on the surface worked to drain the waters.
Late on Saturday afternoon, the rescuers from France and Switzerland speeded up the drainage by using dynamite to blow away part of the rock holding the waters inside.
The rescue mission involved 118 potholing specialists, more than 70 emergency services staff, close to 50 policemen and more than a dozen power utility and other experts, plus a helicopter and dozens of pumps and other equipment.
The potholers went on the underground exploit for an exam project designed to test their "personal limits." -- GOUMOIS, France (Reuters)
