22 Chinese miners rescued after 7 days trapped

BEIJING—Twenty-two coal miners were rescued Tuesday from their flooded pit in northeastern China after being trapped underground for a week.

State broadcaster CCTV showed the men being brought slowly to the surface, with all apparently in good condition.

Hopes for the miners were revived Sunday after noises were detected through a 920-foot (280-meter) pipe that was drilled to allow fresh air into the illegal mine near the city of Qitaihe.

Twenty-six miners were trapped Aug. 23 when workers broke through into an adjacent flooded pit.

The official Xinhua News Agency said three miners were rescued Saturday and that one body has been recovered.

The mine had been ordered shut in 2007 but was reopened without permission on Aug. 16, Xinhua said, citing the provincial bureau of occupational safety.

China’s mines are notoriously deadly, although safety improvements have cut annual fatalities by about one-third from a high of 6,995 in 2002. That improvement has come despite a tripling in the output of coal used to generate most of China’s electrical power.

Technological advances, better training and the closing of the most dangerous, small-scale mining operations have upped the success rate of rescue operations, even after several days.

In April 2010, 115 miners were pulled from a flooded mine in the northern province of Shanxi after more than a week underground.