8 survivors found 5 days after Chinese mine collapsed

Chinese language state media stated rescuers have found eight surviving miners who’ve been trapped for 5 days by a collapse at a gypsum mine in japanese China.

Rescuers have deployed large drilling equipment to dig out tunnels to deliver water and food to the men.

Plans are being made to bring them to the surface, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.

However, getting them out is likely to prove hard. The terrain there is changing constantly. One is confirmed dead, four managed to escape, and seven others have been rescued.

A total of 29 people were working underground when the mine collapsed at 07:56 last Friday in Pingyi County.

Four county-level officials were also sacked on Tuesday, according to Xinhua.

The mine’s owner, Yurong company chairman Ma Congbo, had drowned in an apparent suicide early Saturday morning by jumping into a well while working with rescuers searching for the 17 workers who remain trapped.

Since the mine collapse on Friday, rescuers have pulled 11 workers to safety and recovered one body.

The collapse at the gypsum mine was so massive that the national natural disaster bureau detected a quiver with a magnitude of 4.0 at the mine site.

Gypsum is a soft grey or white mineral used in tofu, fertilisers, toothpaste and plaster of Paris. More than 70 people are still missing a week after the landslide.