Trapped underground, buried alive, lost in the dark and far from the light.

It's not something many of us ever have to consider.

Why would we?

A mining collapse isn't an event that comes out of the blue for a miner.

It comes out of the reality of that illuminated blackness they toil in.

For those that work on the depths of the earth, they know that this nightmare is ever present.

Possible. And what an occupation that makes for. What a commute.

Straight down a murky elevator shaft. 3,000 feet.

On a highway to hell.

Welcome to Marooned, harrowing tales of the catastrophically lost.

I'm Jack Luna.

This is Aaron Hable.

It's night shift at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine on Tuesday, April 25, 2006, in the small town

at Beaconsfield, located on the northern tip of

Tasmania, Australia. 17 miners prepare for another night underground. After receiving that

night's assignments and grabbing their gear, the gold miners make their way to the elevator

that will deliver them nearly one kilometer below ground.

Beside the elevator stands a large board of blue tags.

Each miner grabs their unique identification tag, swapping it from the outsafe side of the board to in underground before descending.

Tonight, Larry Knight, 44, Grant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, are assigned to the telehandler on the

925 meter level. Larry will operate the equipment while Brandt and Todd work in the raised basket,

reinforcing the ceiling and walls of the tunnel with sheets of mining mesh. The sheets of galvanized

...