115 trapped miners rescued after week
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![Doctors prepare to give medical treatment to a survivor rescued from the flooded Wangjialing coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province into a hospital for medical treatment on Monday, April 5, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100406/000802ab80120d24cc7101.jpg "Doctors prepare to give medical treatment to a survivor rescued from the flooded Wangjialing coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province into a hospital for medical treatment on Monday, April 5, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]") |
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Doctors prepare to give medical treatment to a survivor rescued from the flooded Wangjialing coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province into a hospital for medical treatment on Monday, April 5, 2010. [Xinhua] |
China witnessed miracles in its mining rescue history Monday as 115 workers were pulled out alive after being trapped for over a week in a flooded coal mine, where some ate bark and drank murky underground water to survive.
"Two miracles were created in this rescue operation, one is the miracle of life, the other is the miracle of rescue," said Luo Lin, head of the State Administration of Work Safety.
Rescuers still held out hope that the other 38 trapped workers could survive, eight days after the flooding happened in the Wangjialing Coal Mine, which was under construction, in northern Shanxi Province.
Applause burst from the crowd from time to time at the shaft entrance when survivors were taken out from the pit one after another -- the first was brought to the ground at 00:39 a.m. lying on a stretcher carried by four rescuers. Some rescuers were seen in tears.
"I have always believed that you would come and save me," a miner Wang Quanjie with his eyes covered told rescuers by his side in a feeble voice after being taken out of the pit.
"Thank you all! It was too uncomfortable to be soaked in water for so long," another survivor said.
"Rescuers are continuing the search for 38 trapped miners. The rescue work is still challenging," said Liu Dezheng, a spokesman of the rescue headquarters.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao extended their regards to the survivors and paid tributes to all rescuers late Monday.
Hu and Wen ordered the rescue headquarters to step up efforts and go all out to save the other trapped people.
They also required health workers to provide "the most considerate treatment" to the rescued.
MIRACLES HAILED
"It is a miracle that so many people can survive. It is worth all our efforts without sleep for several days," a 55-year-old rescuer Wei Fusheng said while bursting into tears.
"They are very lucky, indeed," he said.
The flooding happened at about 1:40 p.m. March 28 when underground water gushed into the pit of Wangjialing Coal Mine, which straddles Xiangning County, of Linfen City, and Hejin City, of Yuncheng City. Altogether 261 miners were working underground, and only 108 were lifted safely to the surface.
The flooding took place when workers digging tunnels broke through into an old shaft filled with water.
About 3,000 rescuers were mobilized just days after the incident, and the number has climbed to 5,000 by Monday. They have been racing the clock over the past week to pump underground water, estimated at more than 130,000 cubic meters and morer, and drill drainage channel.
Rescuers sent glucose, letters of encouragement and others down the 250-meter pit after hearing tapping on the drill pipe from underground on April 2. But no further signs of life were detected the next day and even after divers were dispatched to enter the shaft to search for survivors.
"Scientific methods and technology used in the rescue have ensured the miners rescued alive after being trapped underground for a week," Shanxi Party chief Zhang Baoshun said.
Most of the survivors were brought out from a working platform, where rescuers had drilled a vertical hole last week. The hole has ensured oxygen in the flooded pit. Rescuers later sent down glucose to the trapped ones through the hole.
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