Rescuers were digging several new conduits on Tuesday to reach at least 12 of the 22 miners trapped underground for nine days in China and threatened by rising water, authorities said.
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An explosion occurred on January 10 in a gold mine in Qixia, in eastern Shandong province, trapping workers several hundred meters deep.
Thanks to a cable lowered via a conduit dug in the rock, the rescuers have already been able to transmit food to the miners.
And their physical condition then improved, the rescue team quoted by the official China news agency said.
Rescuers said that two "
very weak
"
minors
had thus regained their ability to walk.
The miners trapped in the mine were able to bring to the surface a poignant handwritten message.
The author of the note, written on a page torn from a notebook, called for medicines to be sent.
He was also alarmed by a rise in underground water and pointed out that four men were injured.
A phone call between rescuers and miners confirmed that 11 people are 540 meters underground and a twelfth 100 meters below.
The fate of the other 10 men is unknown.
"
The rock near the deposit is mainly granite (...) which is very hard and this slows down the rescue,
" Chen Fei, mayor of Yantai town, on which Qixia depends, said Monday evening.
In addition to three conduits already pierced, rescuers undertook to dig three more on Tuesday, according to a map of rescue operations published by the authorities on the social network Weibo.
Two Qixia officials, the local Communist Party leader and the mayor, were dismissed from their posts last week due to the one-day delay between the occurrence of the accident and the launch of aid.
Mining accidents are relatively common in China, where the industry has a poor safety record and regulations are sometimes not enforced.
In December, 23 miners were killed in a coal mine in Chongqing, in the southwest of the country.
