BEIJING: Eleven of the 22 miners trapped underground in a gold mine in east China’s Shandong Province were successfully lifted to the surface on Sunday, according to rescuers.
The 11 rescued are 10 miners in the mine’s fifth section and one miner in the fourth section.
A miner at the mine’s fourth section was successfully lifted to the surface at 11:13 a.m. on Sunday, becoming the first person to be rescued from the gold mine where an explosion took place 14 days ago.
The worker had been trapped for nearly fifteen days, and is reportedly extremely weak. He was rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
Among the ten miners rescued from the fifth section, one of the men brought to the surface was injured but several were shown walking, supported by rescue workers and wearing a black cloth over their eyes, before being taken away by ambulance.
A total of 11 miners were trapped in the fifth section, but one showed no signs of life on Wednesday night. The 10 rescued miners were in good physical condition and had been receiving food since Saturday after several days of living off nutrient solutions. “We made a breakthrough this morning,” chief engineer at the rescue centre, Xiao Wenru, told the Xinhua News agency.
“After clearing these broken, powdery pieces, we found that there were cavities underneath our progress accelerated.” Officials had said on Thursday it could take another two weeks to drill a rescue shaft through blockages to reach the group of 10.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
