Beijing, April 06: Eight hundred feet below ground, in water that could fill 55 Olympic swimming pools, and after more than a week cut off from civilisation, the miners trapped in a Chinese coal mine did not give up hope.
They ate bark and sawdust. They strapped themselves to the walls lest they slip underwater and drown in their sleep. They tapped on the pipes in case anyone was listening. And early yesterday morning, eight days and eight nights after their ordeal began, the miracle they had been hoping for happened. They were saved.
As stretcher bearers in orange overalls came out of the shaft at Wangjialing colliery, nearly 5,000 rescuers, who had spent over a week pumping water out of the flooded mine, applauded. The 115 survivors emerged from the bowels of the earth wrapped in blankets, many of them covering their eyes, unused to the sunlight after so long in the darkness.
–Agencies