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Rescue workers at the gold mine in the Chinese city of Qixia
Photo: Wang Kai / imago images / Xinhua
In China there are growing hopes of being able to rescue the miners who have been buried for nine days.
As the authorities announced, three more rescue shafts will be drilled in addition to the three existing rescue shafts.
The state-run Xinhua news agency reported that two "very weak" workers were doing better and could walk again after food was brought down to them.
The state television broadcaster CCTV showed that cranes and a giant deep drill were in use at the gold mine in Qixia in the eastern province of Shandong and that dozens of emergency services were removing earth from the shafts.
The rock in the mine is mainly granite and because of this very hard material, the work is only progressing slowly, the mayor of Yantai, to which Qixia belongs, explained on Monday evening.
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Thanks to a rescue operation, buried miners can hope again
Photo: Wang Kai / imago images / Xinhua
During the explosion in the gold mine on January 10, the exit from the shaft was buried and the internal communication system was badly damaged.
22 miners were buried.
As the rescue workers learned on Monday through a message from the people buried, at least twelve miners survived the explosion.
Four of them were injured.
One of them fell into a coma, the state broadcaster CCTV reported on Tuesday.
Survivors asked for medication and bandages
Eleven of the people buried were 540 meters underground, another about 100 meters deeper.
The fate of the other ten people buried was unclear.
The food was lowered to the victims with the help of a cable.
In their message to the outside world, which they had sent up on a lowered rope, the survivors urgently asked for various medicines and bandages.
Three miners suffer from high blood pressure.
In addition, those buried expressed concern about the rising water level in the shafts.
Fatal accidents occur time and again in Chinese mines due to safety deficiencies.
In December, 23 people were killed in a mining accident in the southwestern city of Chongqing.
Because the rescue operation in Qixia started one day late, the town's mayor and the local head of the Communist Party were dismissed last week.
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bam / AFP