Miners recover after receiving food, medicines

2021-01-20 04:00:08 GMT2021-01-20 12:00:08(Beijing Time) Sina English

Miners trapped underground for nine days in east China’s Shandong Province have recovered some strength after food and medical supplies were lowered to them, rescuers said on Tuesday, as authorities race to save the workers.

Twenty-two workers have been stuck 600 meters underground at the Hushan mine in Qixia under Yantai City after an explosion damaged the entrance on January 10.

After days without any signs of life, some of the trapped miners managed to send up a note attached to a metal wire which rescuers had dropped into the mine on Sunday.

Pleading for help, the handwritten message said a dozen of them were alive but were “heavily exhausted and in urgent need of stomach medicine, painkillers, medical tape, external anti-inflammatory drugs, and three people have high blood pressure.”

Rescuers have dug channels and sent supplies down thin shafts. The fourth batch of the nutrient solution was delivered to the miners early on Tuesday, in addition to millet congee, thermometers and blankets. Counselors have been in place to boost the miners’ confidence, said Song Xicheng, a member of the rescue and medical team at the site. A miner’s head injury has been bandaged, and two miners who were very weak are now able to walk, according to Song.

Eleven of the miners were found on Sunday through a drilled channel. They had a phone conversation with rescuers on Monday after a wired telephone was installed underground through the channel. The conversation revealed that 11 miners were stuck in one section of the gold mine and one person in another, while the whereabouts of the other ten workers are still unknown.

China’s National Health Commission has sent an expert team to Qixia to guide and assist in medical aid for trapped workers. The team consists of five medical experts from leading hospitals in Beijing, covering the fields of intensive care medicine, nutrition, neurosurgery, occupational disease and poisoning treatment, as well as psychological intervention, the commission said.

(Agencies)

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