CHINA: Mine worker recounts ordeal during mine flooding

As China's eastern coastal province of Shandong takes stock of its biggest mining disaster, one Chinese mine worker recounted on Monday (August 20) his ordeal of survival during the incident. The disaster in the eastern coastal province of Shandong is the latest to strike China's coal mines, which -- with over 2,000 people killed in the first seven months of this year along -- are the world's deadliest. The miners have been trapped since Friday when a burst river dyke sent water rushing into two shafts. Rescuers hold out little hope of survival for many, if not all, of the men who could not outpace the torrent -- 172 in a main shaft and nine in one nearby. "When I heard the water, it was like a howl, it brought with it some kind of gas, it was cold air. Then the water started flooding the mine. I was at 700 metres below ground level then. We have been working in a mine for so many years, we have a sense of what to do in a disaster," said 42-year-old mine worker Wang Kuitao (pron: wang quee tao), who has worked in the mine for more than 20 years. Wang said he fled the area he was in with eight other co-workers and were joined by more than 20 others before reaching safety on ground level. "We fled the area together. We crawled through a delivery tunnel from 700 metres below ground level to an area 450 metres below ground level. From there, we climbed to reach a worker transport area and then we took the worker transport craft up to ground level," he said, adding it took them more than five hours to reach safety at ground level. "At that time, my feeling was one of fear and anxiety. But my will to live was very strong," he added. By Monday afternoon, the water level in the main 860-metre (2,800 feet) deep pit had dropped by 21.5 meters (70 feet) from its peak, Xinhua reported. Hopes that trapped miners have survived are "extremely faint," it said. Only a day before the disaster, province safety officials meeting in Xintai discussed the threat of floods in coal mines and singled out the area where Friday's disaster took place, showing that officials knew of seasonal risks from heavy rains. China relies on coal to fuel its economic boom and with domestic coal prices at record levels, some operators boost production beyond safe limits despite government efforts to enforce safety standards.

ITN Source | August 21, 2007

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