Society
Rescue of 115 miners a miracle
By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-06 07:26
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Workers pulled to safety after being trapped in flooded shaft for 9 days
BEIJING - Swaying lamp lights miraculously led members of a rescue team to 115 workers, who had been trapped in a flooded coal mine in Shanxi province for nine days.
 A worker is sent to the hospital after being rescued early on Monday morning. [Xinhua] |
Hao Xiqing, a member of the rescue team, was the first to spot the light.
His team descended the shaft of the mine at 4 pm on Sunday with the objective of monitoring gas and observing the water level in the flooded cavern.
At 10:27 pm, when Hao was sitting on a pipe used to pump water from the tunnel, he raised his head and suddenly noticed the reflection of a light swaying on a water surface some distance away.
"Isn't that the location that the command headquarters said may have survivors?" he asked himself.
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A few minutes later, 10 teams comprised of more than 100 rescue workers were sent down to the spot.
By Monday afternoon, 115 miners on stretchers had been carried out in succession.
With their heads swathed in a thick quilt, each survivor was borne by four or five rescue workers to a waiting ambulance and rushed to nearby hospitals for medical check-ups and treatment.
Liu Qiang, head of the medical treatment team at the rescue site, said 153 beds had been prepared at five hospitals, while 153 ambulances had been placed on standby at the mine in anticipation of the miners surviving their plight.
The arrangement was to make sure every survivor could receive timely treatment, Liu said.
Once they are lifted out of the mine, they will each be transported to a nearby hospital, where a medical team is waiting for them, he said.
To assist with their treatment, medical experts, including psychological consultants, have been sent to the Wangjialing Coal Mine by the Ministry of Health and from the provincial capital of Taiyuan.
The survivors will be monitored around the clock and undergo 12 standard tests to assess their conditions, Liu said. All of them will initially wear eye masks to prevent their vision from being damaged after being confined to darkness for more than nine days and then placed in the care of ophthalmologists.
Compared to the intensive care the surviving miners received, the rescue teams that eventually brought them to safety have been living in austere conditions.
Xinhua News Agency reported that more than 3,000 rescue workers across the country had rushed to the site of the accident since it occurred on March 28.
Hao's team arrived in Xiangning on Saturday after receiving an emergency call at 2 am. Though several members of his team were on holiday leave, at 6 am they converged in Changzhi, a city in Shanxi, ready to depart for their destination.
Upon their arrival, the 35 men stayed together in two tents, where they slept on camp beds and wore their coats for warmth. The only nourishment they had for two days was instant noodles, Hao said.
"This is a special time. Saving lives is so important," a rescue worker told Xinhua.
Many of them labored underground for more than 14 hours from Sunday to Monday.
Chen Yongsheng, one of the rescue team leaders, told CCTV that he did not feel tired when he was down in the mine. "Every time I saw a survivor, I felt more strength coming on," he said.
Wei Fusheng, another rescue worker, was in tears when he told Xinhua: "It is a miracle."
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions said on Monday that 2 million yuan ($294,000) would be allocated to assist the surviving miners and to reward the rescue teams.
