
Photo: AP
A survivor is carried onto a waiting ambulance at the Wangjialing Coal Mine in Xiangning county in north China's Shanxi province, 05 Apr 2010
Rescue workers found nine miners alive overnight at the Wangjialing mine in northern China's Shanxi province Monday after the miners had spent 179 hours in a flooded underground shaft.
Hours later, a steady stream of survivors, strapped to stretchers and covered with blankets emerged from the shaft.
Survivors had to contend with severe thirst during their ordeal. One of the miners reported that the murky water in the shaft was too dirty to drink.
Local officials called the rescue operation "a miracle." China's mining industry is among the deadliest in the world.
About 3,000 people have been working since the March 28 disaster to pump water out of the shaft so rescuers could reach 153 trapped miners. Authorities say the coal mine likely flooded after workers penetrated old or abandoned shafts that had accumulated water.
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