Rescuers send food, letters to trapped Chinese miners

Shanxi (China), Apr.3 (ANI): A rescue team sent 360 bags of glucose, each 200 ml, down the 250-meter Wangjialing Coal Mine in Shanxi Province after hearing banging on a metal pipe.

Pan Zengwu, the deputy chief of the Shanxi provincial coal geological bureau, said rescuers heard what they believed to be the trapped miners making the noise at 2:15 p.m.

The rescuers knocked on the drill pipe to respond, Pan said.

The China daily quoted Pan, as saying that the rescue team has been drilling holes to pump out water and send down food.

An iron wire was found attached at the end of a drill pipe when it was lifted to the surface at 3 p.m. Pan said the trapped miners apparently tied this on.

Rescuers tried again to make contact with the miners by shouting through the pipe and knocking on the pipe at about 6:02 p.m. and 6:10 p.m. after they sent more bags of glucose down the pit.

After a period of silence, Xinhua reporters at the site clearly heard several sounds of tapping on the pipe from underground.

"It is a good news. So long as they are still alive, it is all worth it for us to work even harder," said a rescuer surnamed Liu from central Henan Province.

About 3,000 rescuers are struggling to pump water and reach the trapped miners. Altogether 14 pumps were pumping up to 1,935 cubic meters of water per hour, he said, adding rescuers were installing one more pump. (ANI)