Dozens found alive in mine

XIANGNING, China – Dozens of Chinese miners were pulled out alive after being trapped for more than a week in a flooded coal mine, sparking cheers among the hundreds of rescue workers who had raced to save them and almost given up hope.

A live state television broadcast counted off the number of survivors – now up to 55 – as miners wrapped in blankets were hurried to ambulances that sped to nearby hospitals.

Rescuers in tears hugged each other at the scene, which was broadcast on national television. The sudden surge in rescues was a rare piece of good news for China’s mining industry, the deadliest in the world.

“A miracle has finally happened,” a rescue headquarters spokesman, Liu Dezheng, told reporters this morning, after the first nine miners were taken out shortly after midnight. “We believe that more miracles will happen.”

The stream of survivors started about two hours later.

The Communist Party chief of the northern province of Shanxi said he understood 95 people were still alive, though not all had been pulled out. “This is very encouraging,” he said.

As the wave of rescues began, state television said rescuers were preparing to pull as many as 70 to 80 miners out of the mine, though conditions underground remain complicated by high murky water. A total of 153 workers had been trapped.

The first rescue early this morning had seemed beyond hope for days before crews heard tapping from deep underground Friday.

Hundreds of rescuers were underground with hopes that glimpses of swinging lights and new tapping sounds meant even more survivors could be found.

Liu said the first batch of nine rescued miners, who were pulled out today shortly after midnight, were in stable condition. The state-run Xinhua News Agency said all nine were conscious and could say their name and hometown, but their bodies had suffered from being soaked for so long. Television footage showed at least one miner was brought out barefoot.

China Central Television said one of the newly rescued workers was still holding his mining lamp.

The broadcaster also said some miners managed to attach themselves to a wall with their belts when the water rushed in, and they hung there for three days before getting into a mining cart that floated by.

The miners had been trapped since March 28 when workers digging tunnels broke into a water-filled abandoned shaft.

A preliminary investigation last week found that the mine’s managers ignored water leaks before the accident, the State Administration of Work Safety said.

China’s coal mines are the world’s deadliest. Accidents killed 2,631 coal miners in China last year, down from 6,995 deaths in 2002, the most dangerous year on record, according to the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety.