Chinese miners freed after 25 days in flooded mine

BEIJING – Three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China by drinking dirty water and chewing coal before rescuers burrowed through a collapsed tunnel to reach them, a local official and state media said yesterday.

The men and 13 others became stuck when the Xinqiao Coal Mine flooded on June 17. On Sunday, rescue workers digging into the mountainside cleared a path to the miners and saw their lights, which still gave off a dim glow, said Wang Guangneng, a Communist Party spokesman in the Guizhou province county of Qinglong.The miners stayed alive by drinking water that seeped through the earth, Wang said. The official Xinhua News Agency cited a rescuer saying that oxygen was also able to get into the tunnel easily.They also chewed on coal to stave off their hunger, the Guiyang Evening News, based in the provincial capital, reported.It was not clear whether the men had any information on the others still missing. Rescuers had found the body of one miner a week after the flooding, the official Xinhua News Agency said.A Xinhua photo showed one of the rescued miners, Wang Kuangwei, his bones prominent through his skin, getting medical attention on Sunday, with his eyes covered to protect them from the light. The party spokesman said the three men were in stable condition.During an interview with Shenzhen Media Group television, one of the miners, 36-year-old Zhao Weixing, who was lying down with his eyes and face covered, told reporters: ‘I feel OK.’The miners’ rescue after 604 hours underground was a rare tale of survival in China’s coal mines, the world’s deadliest, where an average of 13 workers are killed every day. Most accidents are blamed on failures to follow safety rules, including a lack of required ventilation or fire control equipment. – Nampa-AP