The first group of rescuers and divers entered a flooded Chinese mine where 153 workers have been trapped for almost a week, but they returned within hours yesterday and called the situation underground “very difficult.” There were no further signs of life after tapping was heard the previous day.
The divers said black, murky water was complicating efforts to reach the site where rescuers hope miners are still alive, state-run China Central Television reported.
The soonest that any large-scale rescue effort can be launched is early this morning, an unidentified spokesman at rescue headquarters told the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Television footage on Friday afternoon showed rescuers tapping on pipes with a wrench, then cheering and jumping after hearing a response — the first sign of life since the mine flooded last Sunday. They lowered pens and paper, along with glucose and milk, down metal pipes into the mine.
But nothing new had been heard as of yesterday afternoon, said Wen Changjin, an official with the news center set up at the mine in Shanxi Province.
It was not immediately clear what risks rescuers were taking by entering the Wangjialing mine, but, 3,000 rescuers were working nonstop to pump the water out that poured in last Sunday when workers digging tunnels broke into an abandoned shaft. Wen said the water level underground had dropped by about 5m as of noon yesterday.
Experts said it could take days to reach the miners — and their survival depended on whether they had decent air to breathe and clean water to drink.
“They’re doing probably the only thing they can do, which is to pump water as fast as they possibly can,” David Feickert, a coal mine safety adviser to the Chinese government, said on Friday.
The 153 workers were believed to be trapped on nine different platforms in the mine, which was flooded with the equivalent of more than 55 Olympic swimming pools, state television has reported.
Rescuers said four of the platforms were not totally submerged, Xinhua has reported.
A preliminary investigation found that the mine’s managers ignored water leaks from the abandoned mine before the accident, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
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