29 miners safe in China,29 feared dead in NZ

Some 35 miners were initially trapped Sunday morning when waters from a nearby abandoned mine flooded a shaft in the small,privately owned Batian mine in southwest Sichuan province,the official Xinhua News Agency reported. While 13 managed to escape,another seven workers who went into the mine to rescue their colleagues also became trapped,the report said.

A mine inspector who took part in the rescue said that the trapped workers were able to find dry space in the mine about 125 feet below the surface to wait out the rescue,and that fast pumping by emergency teams cleared the way for the rescuers.

“They were trapped down underground just above the leaked water,” said the inspector,Bao Xiqiang,with southern Sichuan’s Work Safety Bureau. “When the water went down to a safe level,the rescuers and miners were able to wade their way out of the shaft.”

Workers pumped water from the mine for more than 10 hours,Bao said. Rescuers then walked down a slope about 525 feet and along a flat tunnel for another 1,800 feet to reach those trapped,he said.

The rescue was rare good news for a coal mining industry that is still the world’s deadliest despite impressive safety improvements in recent years.

The Batian mine was not producing coal at the time of the accident,but work crews were inside the mine preparing to increase annual capacity from 50,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes,Xinhua reported. Though most of China’s mining accidents occur in small,illegal mines,Xinhua quoted Lin Shucheng,chief of the provincial work safety bureau,as saying Batian’s operation was legal and fully licensed.

7 miners killed in Suriname pit collapse

PARAMARIBO: A landslide at mining pit in a remote part of eastern Suriname killed at least seven people who were illegally digging for gold,a company spokesman said Sunday. The landslide took place late Saturday within mining company Surgold LLC’s exploration area in the South American country’s Sipaliwini district,a rain forest-covered region.

“Apparently (illegal) miners not associated with our exploration activities had been working at the foot of a 10-metre wall in the area when the slide occurred,” said Esteban Crespo,Surgold’s representative. Suriname police inspector Bertrand Riedewald said the seven dead miners were local Maroons. He said three other miners were able to escape while two more were injured.