Two South Korean miners rescued after being trapped underground for nine days say they lived on instant coffee and water falling from the ceiling of a collapsed shaft.

The two men, aged 62 and 56, were pulled to safety on Friday night at a zinc mine in the town of Bonghwa.

They had been stranded there after a heap of earth fell and blocked the shaft entrance about 190 metres (620ft) below the surface on 26 October.

Bang Jong-hyo, a doctor who treated the miners in hospital, said they were both in fairly good condition though they initially said they were suffering hypothermia and muscle pains.

He added that the pair were expected to be released within days.

The two miners shared 30 sticks of instant coffee, drank water running inside the shaft and made a fire to survive while trapped underground.

“I have lots of things to tell my father so I’ve written them down in a notebook in the past 10 days,” said Park Geun-hyung, the son of one of the rescued miners, Park Jeong-ha.

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“Now I want to spend some time with my father to tell him what I want to say and listen to what I want to hear from him.”

President Yoon Suk Yeol called their rescue “miracle-like” and “touching.”

In letters sent to the miners, Mr Yoon was quoted as saying the pair have given “new hope to the Republic of South Korea, which has been stricken by grief,” his office said Sunday, in an apparent reference to a tragic Halloween crowd surge in Seoul that killed 156 people last weekend.

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