19 Chinese miners rescued from flooded mine

[News_Editor]

19 Chinese miners rescued from flooded mine

2011-08-30 18:14:44 GMT+7 (ICT)

QITAIHE, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- Nineteen miners were pulled alive from a flooded mine in northeastern China on early Tuesday morning, a week after they became trapped, state-run media reported. Several others remain trapped.

The incident began Tuesday afternoon last week when heavy rainfall flooded a pit belonging to the Hengtai Coal Mining Co. Ltd. in Boli County of Heilongjiang Province. Nineteen workers were able to escape while 26 others were trapped.

The first three miners were rescued on Saturday, while the body of one miner was recovered on Sunday. Several days later, at around 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday, the first of the nineteen miners was brought to the surface.

"I hope you will recover soon," Wang Xiankui, governor of Heilongjiang Province, told the miner, as quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency. "We are doing everything we can to save your colleagues," Wang added. The miner thanked him for his concern.

In total, nineteen miners were brought to the surface on Tuesday while three others remain trapped. "During the 165 hours they spent underground, they managed to keep their mining lamps on continuously," a mining expert told Xinhua. "Water had been dripping from the rock ceiling above their heads, which also helped them to survive."

Safety conditions at mines in China have significantly improved in recent years, but they remain among the world's most dangerous with 1,083 fatalities in the first seven months of 2011 alone. There were 2,433 fatalities in 2010 and 2,631 in 2009.

China in recent years shut down scores of small mines to improve safety and efficiency in the mining industry. The country has also ordered all mines to build emergency shelter systems by June 2013 which are to be equipped with machines to produce oxygen and air conditioning, protective walls and airtight doors to protect workers against toxic gases and other hazardous factors.

The first manned test of such a permanent underground chamber was carried out earlier this month when around 100 people - including managers, engineers, miners, medical staff, and the chamber's developers - took part in a 48-hour test at a mine owned by the China National Coal Group in the city of Shuozhou in northern China's Shanxi Province.

One of the worst mining accidents in China in recent years happened in November 2009 when 104 workers were killed after several explosions at a coal mine in Heilongjiang province.

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