Xiangning: Chinese rescuers have pulled 114 miners from a flooded coal mine in northern Shanxi province more than a week since the accident occurred, dozens of them rescued on Monday.
"It is a miracle in China`s mining rescue history," Luo Lin, head of the State Administration of Work Safety waiting at the pit entrance, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
Rescuers were continuing the search for 39 trapped miners, the agency said.
Shanxi Communist Party chief Zhang Baoshun was quoted as saying most of the survivors were believed to be in stable condition.
A total of 153 workers had been trapped.
The first rescue early Monday morning had seemed beyond hope for days before crews heard tapping from deep underground on Friday.
Some of the soaked miners had hung from shaft walls by their belts for days. Hundreds of rescuers were underground with hopes that glimpses of swinging lights and new tapping sounds meant even more survivors could be found.
Liu said the first batch of nine rescued miners, who were pulled out Monday morning shortly after midnight, were in stable condition. The state-run Xinhua News Agency said all nine were conscious and could say their name and hometown, but their bodies had suffered from being soaked for so long. Television footage showed at least one miner was brought out barefoot.
China Central Television said one of the newly rescued workers still was holding his mining lamp.
The broadcaster also said some miners managed to attach themselves to a wall with their belts when the water rushed in, and they hung there for three days before getting into a mining cart that floated by.
The miners had been trapped since March 28 when workers digging tunnels broke into a water-filled abandoned shaft.
Before rescuers heard tapping noises from below Friday, they had feared this would be China`s deadliest mine disaster in more than two years.
A preliminary investigation last week found that the mine`s managers ignored water leaks before the accident, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
China`s coal mines are the world`s deadliest. Accidents killed 2,631 coal miners in China last year, down from 6,995 deaths in 2002, the most dangerous year on record, according to the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety.
Bureau Report
