Thaindian News

New Delhi, Apr 5 (ANI): Nine miners escaped death miraculously after being trapped under the flooded Wangjialing coal mine in north China’s Shanxi Province, after remaining underground for 179 hours.

The survivors were immediately sent to a nearby hospital for medical treatment after being pulled out of the shaft on Monday morning.

All of them maintained stable health conditions and lucid minds, capable of telling who they were and where they were from. Their blood pressure and heart rates remained normal after having being trapped in the shaft for one week, Xinhua reports.

One of the survivors, named Li Guoyu, 38, told doctors that they had been unable to pass urine for two days, because they dared not drink the murky water flowing in the tunnel.

A total of 144 other fellow miners remain trapped, but rescue workers heard banging on the metal pipe, indicating further signs of life.

Thousands of people kept standing along the road at midnight and burst into applause when the ambulances carrying the survivors passed by.

Luo Lin, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, read a telegraph of Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang on the rescue site.

In the letter, Zhang expressed sympathy with the survivors on behalf of Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and ordered rescue workers “to race against time and go all out to continue the rescue work.”

Hu and Wen has also warned against the occurrence of secondary disasters in and around the mine covering about 180 square kilometers, which straddles Xiangning County, of Linfen City, and Hejin, a county-level city within Yuncheng City.

Underground water gushed into the pit of the under-construction Wangjialing coal mine at about 1:40 p.m. last Sunday. Altogether 261 miners were working underground, and only 108 were lifted to safety. (ANI)