Two weeks after the explosion at a gold mine in Qixia, Shandong province, which stranded twenty-two miners several hundred meters underground, nine of the ten people still stranded were found dead, said. Monday, January 25, local authorities.
Last week, an injured miner died underground from his injuries.
And on Sunday, eleven workers had already been brought to the surface in front of the cameras of national television.
Since the January 10 explosion, rescue operations have been followed with anguish across the country.
Despite the "tireless efforts" of the rescuers, "nine minors were unfortunately found dead" and "their bodies brought to the surface," Chen Fei, the mayor of Yantai - the city which administers the administration, told reporters on Monday (January 25th). Qixia.
The search continues to find the last miner trapped underground.
Rescuers have not heard from him.
The explosion had caused extensive damage preventing the miners from coming to the surface.
Thanks to a metal cable lowered via a conduit dug in the rock, the rescuers were however able to transmit food, medicine and telephones to some of the miners.
The rescuers had launched in parallel in the drilling of several conduits to access the men trapped underground.
Due to the hardness of the underground rocks, relief efforts estimated on Friday that at least two weeks would still be needed to release them.
But operations had suddenly accelerated Sunday.
While mine safety has improved significantly over the past decades, accidents still occur regularly in China, where regulations are sometimes not enforced.
In December, twenty-three miners were killed in a coal mine in Chongqing (southwest).
With AFP
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