Rescuers tell story of miners’ survival

Rescuers described the survival of three men, who were alive after being trapped underground for 25 days in a flooded coal mine, a ‘miracle’ and told the process of their rescue.

Li Xingwei, head of the Longchang coal mine in Qinglong county, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, was the first to find the lucky trio.

It was at 11:28 a.m. Sunday, and Li said he just cleared a tunnel which was previously blocked after the disaster with more than 10 others, before they found light ahead. “We crept along the tunnel in excitement, seeing someone sitting in front,” he recalled.

Then Li asked the miners “how many people are there”. A voice answered weakly but clearly ‘three’, and “we were from Henan”.

While rescuers carried the miners on their back, Zhao Weixing, one of the trapped, said “I want some water” and Wang Quanjie, another miner, said “I want to go out”.

He Minghua, a doctor with the People’s Hospital of Qinglong, made physical examination for the miners. “They were all conscious, and their hearts and lungs were in good conditions, and their blood pressures, breath and heart beats were steady,” he said. Normally, human beings could live 10 days solely on water, said Yang Jie, a doctor with the hospital affiliated to the Guiyang Academy of Medicine.

He Sijun, a rescuer who had been doing rescue work in mines for six years, believed that their will played an important role in their survival.

QINGLONG, Guizhou, Xinhua