The 14 miners who were trapped for more than a day in a flooded
colliery in east China's Jiangxi Province were rescued Friday.
Rescuers entered the shaft on Friday morning and lifted the 14
to the ground by 2:10 p.m. after 32 hours.
Each of the workers, weak and blindfolded, was carried by two
rescuers up to the ground. Some of them were still able to speak
despite being starved for more than 30 hours.
Rescuers had fed them milk before pulling them out of the
shaft.
They were greeted with roars and applause from more than 100
rescuers, family members, local officials and police officers
gathering anxiously outside the flooded pit.
They are hospitalized and were described as stable, doctors
said.
The miners had found high ground above the four-meter-deep
floodwater with ventilation. The water level dropped to two meters
on Friday morning and one meter by the time they were rescued,
thanks to the continuous pumping.
Nie Xingen, 45, said he ran into the shaft to inform other
workers about the flood, but was not able to get out.
"I was so starving last night that I swallowed some pieces of
paper box after soaking them in water," said Nie.
The head of the mining team, Zhu Xingen, said he ate peanut
shells.
The 14 were trapped underground after floodwater inundated the
Zhayi colliery in Fengcheng County at 4:50 a.m. on Thursday.
Fifteen miners were working at the time and one managed to
escape.
The township-level mine has an annual output of 30,000 tons.
The provincial work safety and mining authorities have ordered
all coal mines in the region to halt operations and carry out
safety inspections.
The emergency circular, issued on Thursday following three
deadly mine accidents that left eight dead over the past four days,
said mining operations could not be resumed until safety problems
were eliminated.
The accident occurred after another colliery in Henan Province
was flooded on July 29, when 102 miners were working
underground.
Thirty-three managed to escape and 69 were rescued after being
trapped for more than three days, in an operation described by the
head of China's work safety watchdog as "one of the most successful
rescue operations in recent years".
Rescuers poured more than 500 liters of milk through an
800-meter ventilation pipe to feed the miners who used their
helmets to catch the milk, their only source of food in 76
hours.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2007)