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SAVED AT LAST: One of the trapped miners being helped out by rescuers. The mine owner delayed reporting the accident and tried to launch his own rescue operation. -- PHOTO: XINHUA
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BEIJING - ELEVEN Chinese miners trapped underground for nearly six days ate paper and chewed on a boiled leather belt to stay alive, local media reported yesterday.
The miners were pulled out alive from the illegal iron and gold mine in northern China early on Sunday, the Beijing News said, in a rare piece of good news from the world's deadliest mines, after a tunnel collapsed last Monday.
'At first, we ate newspaper pages when we got hungry, then orange peel,' the paper quoted Wu Pengyong, a 33-year-old miner, as saying.
'Later we got really hungry. I had a leather belt. I boiled it but it wouldn't cook. I divided this half-cooked belt out with everyone to eat,' he said.
After giving up hope of rescue, they heard the sound of a digging machine outside.
'We are really grateful to the rescuers for saving us,' a second miner, Mr Bai Guoxin, told the newspaper.
All 11 were in stable condition and were able to walk out with the help of rescuers.
Their rescue and how they survived follows a similar case in August when two brothers, Mr Meng Xianchen and Mr Meng Xianyou, became mini-celebrities after they recounted how they clawed their way to the surface after nearly six days trapped in a collapsed coal mine.
In the latest incident, the mine owner delayed reporting the accident and tried launching his own rescue operation, the paper said.
The local authorities also failed to disclose details of the rescue to the media, the paper said, and many journalists had been 'obstructed in different ways' from reporting at the site.
China has the world's deadliest mining industry with thousands of miners dying in gas blasts, collapses and floods every year. Scores die in rescue attempts launched by mine bosses seeking to cover up accidents at illegal mines.
Police are still hunting for the owner of a coal mine in northern Shanxi province where the bodies of at least 105 people have been recovered after an explosion last Wednesday, the Shanghai Daily said in a separate report.
The authorities have already detained 33 coal mine managers and officials after they delayed reporting the accident for five hours and tried to launch their own rescue operation.
About 50 people with no rescue training were sent underground to rescue trapped colleagues but never resurfaced, state media reported on Saturday.
REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
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