Rescuers work to save 153 trapped miners

RESCUERS worked frantically yesterday to try to find more than 150 workers trapped in a flooded coal mine in North China’s Shanxi Province.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local authorities to do everything possible to save the workers at the vast Wangjialing mine in Shanxi Province, where the accident took place yesterday.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang was immediately dispatched to the scene to oversee rescue efforts.

Investigations so far have shown that 261 workers were in the Wangjialing pit as water started to gush in — 108 were brought to safety, but 153 were still trapped underground, the nation’s work safety administration said.

A preliminary probe showed that water that had accumulated in a separate pit leaked into the area where the workers were located, the China Daily said.

A full investigation has been launched into the cause of the accident at the mine, which belongs to the State-owned Huajin Coking Coal Co. and covers an area of 180 square kilometers in Xiangning County.

The company is half-owned by China National Coal Group Corp., the second-largest coal producer in the country and the parent of Hong Kong-listed firm China Coal Energy.

«Most of those trapped are migrant workers from Shanxi, Hebei, Hunan and Guizhou provinces,» a rescuer was quoted as saying on Xinhua News Agency.

A report on CCTV showed dozens of rescuers wearing black jackets and helmets working in rain at the mine.

There are currently 130,000 to 140,000 cubic meters of water in the pit, or the equivalent of at least 52 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the report said.

It will take three days to completely drain the pit, but rescuers should be able to reach the trapped workers before the water was entirely pumped out, CCTV said.

Water stopped rising yesterday morning with more than 10 pumps pumping up to 125 cubic meters of water per hour and operating round-the-clock at the site.

Construction of the mine began in April 2007 but ran into problems because of complex geological conditions and other difficulties, media reports said. The mine was scheduled to start production in October this year.

The colliery was due to produce 6 million tons of coal a year.

In November 2009, 108 miners were killed when an explosion ripped through a coal mine belonging to another State-owned firm in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

Earlier this month, 25 people died in a coal mine fire in Henan Province.