By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - It was 3 a.m., at the end of a nine-hour shift, when the power went off in the coal mine. Then came a thundering sound, and water and mud gushed into the mine shaft, trapping nine miners inside.
Eight days later they were pulled out alive — some of the luckiest men in China's disaster-blighted mining industry.
"We came back from death's door and live again," miner Li Liuwa was quoted as saying in a detailed first person account of their ordeal carried by the Xinhua News Agency on Saturday, a day after the rescue. At the time of the accident, storms had for days been ravaging the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where the Jianshe mine is located. Floods and landslides in the usually arid province have already killed over 150 people in recent months. After the mudslide, two miners — one buried up to his head in mud — were pulled free, and they made their way to a service shaft, Xinhua quoted Li, 22, and another miner, Gao Baolin, 43, as saying from their hospital beds. Worried that more mud and water could come, they built a wall across the entrance of the shaft using an upturned coal cart, stones and chunks of coal. Two or three days later, miners found a ventilation shaft offering air and some water collected in a hollow. To stave off hunger pangs, they stripped bark from tree trunks used to shore up frames in the shaft. Miners used their lamps only when they needed to get water and bark. Early on the morning of the eighth day, as the battery on their last lamp was dying, the digging of the rescue parties was heard. Within three hours, they had broken through. "We were so incredibly happy. Nine tough guys all broke down in tears," Li said. Miners were taken to hospital for oxygen and treatment and will remain under observation for three days before doctors declare them out of danger, according to Xinhua and newspaper accounts. Newspapers ran photos of one mud-caked miner, Zhu Guojun, being lifted by several rescuers using a makeshift stretcher. A black cloth had been placed over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Survivors are rarely found when accidents strike China's notorious mine industry. More than 3,400 miners have been killed so far this year in gas explosions, floods and other mining accidents. The government has promised to punish operators of mines where deadly accidents occur, prompting managers and owners to try to cover up such incidents. Police in Shanxi province, just to the east of Shaanxi, are searching for the owners of a gold mine where five miners suffocated on June 7 from a carbon dioxide leak, the official English-language China Daily said Saturday. The owners had attempted to conceal the deaths, but local residents reported them to officials, it said.
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