Three out of 26 miners trapped in a flooded mine pit in China were rescued on Saturday. The mine in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province was flooded on Tuesday as 45 miners were working in the pit.
At the Hengtai Coal Mining Co in Boli County, Qitaihe City, nineteen miners escaped right away but 26 were trapped for 100 hours in the flooded mine. It was an illegally operated mine as per the official Xinhua news agency report.
The rescue operators had pumped out about 2 million cubic feet of water from the mine pit by Saturday. This helped to lower the level of the water by 10 meters inside the pit. While four survivors were brought out of the mine on Saturday one of them, Zhao Wenquan, died in hospital on Sunday.
Jing Renguang is a 41 year old miner who is one of the three survivors. He said that the accident occurred when they were loading the tramcar with coal. He said that then he rushed toward a tunnel that was higher up but even so was covered by water immediately. He then grabed a rope and a piece of timber to cling to.
Wang Xiankui, governor of Heilongjiang, said on Saturday evening that the rescue work has entered the final stage. Li Xingyuan, spokesman of the rescue command center said that a 277.9-meter deep hole had been drilled to supply ventilation to the area where the miners might be trapped. They hope to get the trapped miners out as soon as possible.