Rescuers widened a conduit on Wednesday (January 20) to extract a group of a dozen Chinese miners trapped underground for 10 days and threatened by rising waters, state media said.
Read also: Miners trapped in China sent a note to rescuers
An explosion occurred on January 10 at a gold mine in Qixia, eastern Shandong province, trapping a total of 22 workers several hundred meters deep.
The explosion blocked the entrance to the well and cut off communications.
Thanks to a cable lowered via a conduit dug in the rock, the rescuers were however able to transmit food and medicine to 11 miners trapped 540 meters underground, who were able to regain their strength.
Another man is trapped 100 meters below.
The fate of the other 10 is currently unknown.
The group of 11 miners, thanks to the same cable, was able to bring to the surface two handwritten messages.
They were particularly alarmed by a rise in groundwater and reported at least four injured.
"
One of the miners was seriously injured in the explosion and is currently in a coma,
" Song Xicheng, deputy chief of the rescue teams, told national television on Wednesday.
Rescuers have already succeeded in digging two conduits in order to deliver food, telephones, paper and basic necessities to the minors.
The largest of the mine shafts, the width of a manhole cover, is currently being widened in hopes of being able to fit miners trapped underground, the television said.
But the hardness of the rock, mainly granite, prevents a rapid progression of drilling operations, lamented Chen Fei, the mayor of Yantai city, on which Qixia depends.
Rescuers sent the miners new, waterproof phones after their second note sent Tuesday, which noted damage to those sent earlier, according to the New China news agency.
The case is very followed in the country.
On the social network Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, the
hashtag
"
#Shandong miners send a new message
" had already been seen more than 170 million times Wednesday.
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 accident and the launch of aid.
