69 trapped miners in China rescued after three-day ordeal

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

BEIJING (AFP) — Sixty-nine men trapped in a flooded Chinese coal mine for more than three days were pulled out alive on Wednesday, authorities said, ending a terrifying ordeal in which they survived on milk and pumped-in oxygen.

Dramatic footage broadcast on state-run television showed the filthy miners stumbling as they emerged from the mine in central China's Henan province wearing blindfolds to give their eyes time to adjust to daylight again.

A crowd waiting at the entrance of the Zhijian mine cheered while eager officials rushed to shake the hands of the dazed men, some of whom were so weakened by their experience that they had to be carried away on stretchers.

"Through our hard efforts over the last 70-odd hours we have saved 69 lives and I'm really...