Miner miracle: What a sweet knock
Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily |
April 3, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Rescuers yesterday heard the sound of knocking on pipes at a flooded north China coal mine where 153 workers have been trapped for six days.
Pan Zengwu, deputy chief of the Shanxi provincial coal geological bureau, said rescuers heard what they believed to be the trapped miners making the noise at 2:15pm, Xinhua news agency reported.
Rescuers knocked on the drill pipe to respond.
Pan said the rescue team sent 360 bags of glucose down the 250-meter pit of the Wangjialing Coal Mine as holes are drilled to pump out water and supply food.
A piece of wire was found attached to the end of a drill pipe when it was lifted to the surface at 3pm, apparently tied on by trapped miners.
The sounds were the first signs of life since the mine was flooded last Sunday.
"I'm so happy to hear the news and I think everybody is," Tang Yinfeng, whose brother-in-law is trapped, told The Associated Press last night.
About 1:40pm on Sunday, underground water gushed into the pit, which was under construction, when 261 miners were working underground. The lucky ones, 108 of them, were lifted safely to the surface, Xinhua said.
About 3,000 rescuers were racing the clock to pump water and reach the miners.
Rescuers said the trapped miners were working on nine different platforms, and four platforms had not been totally submerged, making it possible that some survived.
The Wangjialing mine's managers caused overcrowding in the shaft by assigning extra tunneling crews in a rush to finish work ahead of schedule and ignoring warning signs, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
Families and survivors of the flood say local officials are covering up the true number of people trapped underground.
The local government has not published the names of the 153 miners, prompting Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to demand a list.
"Is 153 the exact number?" Zhang, sent to direct rescue efforts, asked mine officials.
"I don't think suspicion from the public is unreasonable," he added, according to Beijing News.
At the mine, relatives waiting for news of their fathers, sons and brothers, and survivors keen to help out with rescue efforts said the official toll was too low.
"We sent 10 tramcars down to the pit before the flood and each car usually carries 44 miners and a driver," a tramcar driver who was working on Sunday told Reuters.
"Only one car came back up the shaft, plus a few dozen miners who escaped on foot," he said, suggesting nearly 450 people could have been underground at the time of the flood.
A Shanxi government official said they had heard there were a lot of suspicions, but insisted the number was accurate.
If the workers cannot be saved, the accident will be China's worst mining disaster in more than two years.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a gas explosion at a coal mine in central China's Henan Province on Wednesday had risen to 19, and about 24 people were still trapped underground, local authorities said yesterday.
A coal mine fire in northwest China's Shaanxi Province killed nine people and injured another, according to the provincial government yesterday.
Twenty-seven miners were working underground when the fire occurred about 7pm on Thursday in the Quanzigou Coal Mine in Hancheng City. Seventeen were lifted safely to the ground.
In northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, five people were trapped underground after a coal mine was flooded on Thursday afternoon, officials said yesterday. Rescue efforts were still underway when Shanghai Daily went to press.
Pan Zengwu, deputy chief of the Shanxi provincial coal geological bureau, said rescuers heard what they believed to be the trapped miners making the noise at 2:15pm, Xinhua news agency reported.
Rescuers knocked on the drill pipe to respond.
Pan said the rescue team sent 360 bags of glucose down the 250-meter pit of the Wangjialing Coal Mine as holes are drilled to pump out water and supply food.
A piece of wire was found attached to the end of a drill pipe when it was lifted to the surface at 3pm, apparently tied on by trapped miners.
The sounds were the first signs of life since the mine was flooded last Sunday.
"I'm so happy to hear the news and I think everybody is," Tang Yinfeng, whose brother-in-law is trapped, told The Associated Press last night.
About 1:40pm on Sunday, underground water gushed into the pit, which was under construction, when 261 miners were working underground. The lucky ones, 108 of them, were lifted safely to the surface, Xinhua said.
About 3,000 rescuers were racing the clock to pump water and reach the miners.
Rescuers said the trapped miners were working on nine different platforms, and four platforms had not been totally submerged, making it possible that some survived.
The Wangjialing mine's managers caused overcrowding in the shaft by assigning extra tunneling crews in a rush to finish work ahead of schedule and ignoring warning signs, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
Families and survivors of the flood say local officials are covering up the true number of people trapped underground.
The local government has not published the names of the 153 miners, prompting Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to demand a list.
"Is 153 the exact number?" Zhang, sent to direct rescue efforts, asked mine officials.
"I don't think suspicion from the public is unreasonable," he added, according to Beijing News.
At the mine, relatives waiting for news of their fathers, sons and brothers, and survivors keen to help out with rescue efforts said the official toll was too low.
"We sent 10 tramcars down to the pit before the flood and each car usually carries 44 miners and a driver," a tramcar driver who was working on Sunday told Reuters.
"Only one car came back up the shaft, plus a few dozen miners who escaped on foot," he said, suggesting nearly 450 people could have been underground at the time of the flood.
A Shanxi government official said they had heard there were a lot of suspicions, but insisted the number was accurate.
If the workers cannot be saved, the accident will be China's worst mining disaster in more than two years.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a gas explosion at a coal mine in central China's Henan Province on Wednesday had risen to 19, and about 24 people were still trapped underground, local authorities said yesterday.
A coal mine fire in northwest China's Shaanxi Province killed nine people and injured another, according to the provincial government yesterday.
Twenty-seven miners were working underground when the fire occurred about 7pm on Thursday in the Quanzigou Coal Mine in Hancheng City. Seventeen were lifted safely to the ground.
In northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, five people were trapped underground after a coal mine was flooded on Thursday afternoon, officials said yesterday. Rescue efforts were still underway when Shanghai Daily went to press.
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