Five dead bodies have been recovered from the flooded coal mine
in the northeast, but twenty-five miners remained trapped
underground and ten rescue workers poisoned by carbon monoxide
yesterday
"The rescuers are in a stable condition after medical
treatment," said Sun Hongzhi, director of Jilin
Provincial Coal Administration.
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The Tengda Coal Mine in Jiaohe City was flooded on Sunday when
water from the neighboring Ji'an mine gushed into the shaft,
trapping 69 miners.
Thirty-nine were rescued the next day, but workers were forced
to stop operations at 12:30 AM on Tuesday after some lost contact
with the rescue center and ten were affected by carbon
monoxide.
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All the rescuers were lifted out of the tunnel.
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"The priority now is to restore the ventilation system," said
rescue expert Duan Genghua.
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According to latest reports, rescuers were still waiting for the
poisonous gas to be discharged, and there was no information on the
remaining 25 trapped miners.?
As events were unfolding, Vice-Premier Huang Ju
told a two-day conference on mine safety that dealing with the
issue of coal mine safety was important.
"Ensuring safe production in coal mines is a top priority," he
said at the event in Huainan City in east China's Anhui
Province.
Generally, he said, the situation in collieries has improved,
with a year-on-year drop in the total number of pit accidents and
deaths. However, due to the strained coal supply, fragile
management and inadequate supervision, big blasts occurred from
time to time.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2005)