RESCUE WORKERS in Shanxi province were racing to save 153 miners still trapped underground by a flood in the Wangjialing coal mine, although rescuers said the workers’ chances of surviving were improving as they succeeded in pumping water out.
There has been no contact with the trapped miners since the flooding, which took place in a mine still under construction, but six pumps were pumping up to 300 cubic metres of water per hour round-the-clock at the site and the survival chances of the trapped workers were looking better, officials at the rescue headquarters told the Xinhua news agency.
Frantic relatives gathered around the mine. Most of the workers were migrants from various parts of China.
The flood may have started when workers digging a new mine in the northern China mining region accidentally broke into a network of old, water-filled shafts.
While China has done much to improve the safety record of its mining industry, it remains the world’s deadliest, and old abandoned tunnels are posing a new risk as the country digs deeper for the coal it needs to fuel its economic boom. More than 2,600 people were killed in the country’s coal mines last year.
Earlier this month 32 workers were killed in a similar incident when underground water flooded a mine under construction in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
There were 261 workers in the mine when water gushed in at about 1.40pm in Sunday’s incident. Of those, 108 were lifted safely out while 153 others remained trapped. The mine covers about 180 sq km and is expected to produce six million tonnes of coal annually once it is in production.
The incident could prove one of the deadliest in four years if the workers are not saved. In November 2005, 171 workers died after an explosion in a mine in the country’s northeast.