Miners rescued from flooded mine in China

I recently read an article in cnn.com about an accident that took place in China and left dozens of miners trapped.

Last week, forty-five miners were inside the Hengtai coal mine located in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. The mine flooded when miners mistakenly drilled into another mine that was flooded. Water surged in, endangering the lives of all the workers.

 Crews worked hard to reach them down there, for they drilled a 900-foot-deep hole to make contact with the miners and pumped more than 130,000 cubic meters of water. They lowered supplies in a package that included food, a lamp, pen and paper. Rescue teams pulled to the surface twenty-two miners who could escape while one miner was found dead.  Crews continue to look for the other miners.

Hengtai mine was operating illegally because it was ordered closed in 2007, but the owner reopened it without permission, despite government attempts to shut down outdated mines. Two officials have been fired over the incident.

This is truly a very sad incident. Fortunately, the crews did a good job in rescuing many miners. From my point of view, the operators of this illegal mine should be punished severely.

Kite