At least four workers have been killed and rescuers are fighting to save eight others who have been trapped in a flooded colliery for a week in China’s northeast Jilin Province.
Rescuers found four bodies in the shaft just before midnight, an official with the rescue team said today.
Water from a neighbouring colliery flooded the Fengxing coal mine in the city of Jiaohe on April 6, when 70 workers were inside the mine shaft.
Fifty eight of them managed to escape, while 12 remained trapped ever since. Rescuers are still rushing to pump water out of the shaft.
However, experts said that chances of survival were slim for the rest eight, as the conditions underground were not suitable for survival and the “golden 72 hours” for rescue had passed, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.