The first man rescued, who is identified as Nan Jianning, meets with an applauding crowd when he is brought to the ground. All sixty-nine miners who have been trapped in a flooded coal mine for more than three days were rescued alive by 12:54 Wednesday in central China's Henan Province.(Xinhua Photo)

All the 69 miners who were trapped in a flooded coal mine in central China's Henan Province for more than three days were rescued by early Wednesday afternoon.

The first miner to emerge from the shaft at 11:38 a.m. was finally confirmed to be Lan Jianning, not Nan Jianning as earlier reported. He was greeted with roars and applause from a large crowd who had gathered anxiously outside.

The last, Cao Baicheng, deputy head of the mining team, was lifted above ground at 12:54 p.m.

Most of miners were so weak they could not walk by themselves and had to be supported by medical workers or transferred to stretchers. They were then taken to four different hospitals nearby.

"Some of them suffered diarrhea because they had drunk filthy water while being trapped underground, but now they are all stable," said Ma Jianzhong, director of the Henan Provincial Department of Health.

In the Center Hospital of the Sanmenxia City, doctors helped 25 miners take millet congee through pipes three hours after their arrival.

"We had five leaders underground who were in charge of organizing rescue efforts, and we were confident that we would survive," said Yang Wanjun, 32.

"Everyone knew we could be saved because the telephone line wasn't broken. If it had been, we'd be dead for sure," he said.

Wei Shizhong, a doctor at the hospital, said the miners would all recover.

The flooding occurred at around 8:40 a.m. on Sunday at the Zhijian coal mine in Sanmenxia's Shanxian county, about 200 kilometers west of Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, when 102 miners were working underground. Thirty-three managed to escape.

Rescuers said that the miners trapped underground were lucky in the sense that, after the coal mine was struck by the flooding, the ventilation and communication facilities remained undamaged.

"The supply of milk through the ventilation pipe and availability of a fixed telephone line turned out to be important factors in helping the trapped miners preserve their physical strength and keep their spirits up," said one rescuer.

Rescuers poured 382 liters of milk through the 800-meter ventilation pipe at around 9:00 p.m. on Monday, followed by another 167 liters on Tuesday morning, to feed the miners who used their helmets to catch the milk, their only source of food in 76 hours.

An estimated 4,000 cubic meters of water poured into the shaft when flood triggered by rainstorms swamped the mine at 8:40 a.m. on Sunday. Rescuers pumped about 2,000 cubic meters of water out of the mine and cleared about 100 cubic meters of mud in the shaft.

Hundreds of rescuers, including 300-armed police, struggled to prevent more water from entering the shaft, clearing away the silt, and providing ventilation and oxygen to the trapped miners.

Senior national work safety officials and local Party and government officials, including Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, Zhao Tiechui, head of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, Xu Guangchun, secretary of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Li Chengyu, governor of the Henan provincial government, have been staying at the coal mine to oversee the rescue efforts soon after the accident happened.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and State Councilor Hua Jianmin had urged the local authorities do their utmost to save the lives of the 69 miners.

The state-owned mine was established in 1958. It was designed to produce 210,000 tons a year, but its actual annual output is 300,000 tons.

Li Yizhong said he felt "hugely relieved" when he saw the miners being pulled out, quoting a Chinese saying to describe his feeling as like "a huge stone lifted from my heart".

"It's one of the most successful rescue operations in recent years," he said.
 

Editor: Yan