A flooding accident occurred at a coal mine in East China's Shandong Province on June 1, 2024. Photo: CCTV News

A flooding accident occurred at a coal mine in East China's Shandong Province on June 1, 2024. Photo: CCTV News

A flooding incident occurred at a coal mine in East China's Shandong Province on Saturday, resulting in eight miners being trapped. As of Wednesday morning, the rescue operation finished with five of the trapped miners being found alive.

The Ningyang County Emergency Management Bureau of Tai'an city in Shandong issued a notification regarding the flooding accident at Huafeng Coal Mine of Shandong Energy on Saturday, stating that after the accident, the provincial, municipal, and county levels activated emergency response mechanisms and established a joint rescue command center to fully organize and carry out the rescue operation.

The miners were trapped at a depth of less than 600 meters as of Sunday afternoon, and the biggest challenge related to the rescue operation was the slow drainage of silt. 

At 4 am on Monday, the water in the alleyway had been mostly drained, and one trapped person was found. After a medical examination, there were no signs of life.

After 72 hours of relentless effort, the remaining seven trapped individuals were found one after another underground.

Five of them have been brought to the surface and taken to the hospital for treatment, and the other two have been pronounced dead by medical examiners.
Earlier on Sunday, a rescue team of more than 200 people were working to reach the trapped miners underground as quickly as possible. The command center has designated three hospitals for treatment, with medical personnel and ambulances on standby at the site. Additionally, 15 experts have been arranged to provide on-site guidance for the rescue efforts, according to the media report.

The cause of the incident remains under investigation.

Huafeng coal mine is an old mine with a century-long history of extraction, primarily producing high-quality gas coal and gas-fat coal. However, after a century of mining, the mine's old and deep shafts, complex conditions, and severe hazards have led to immense survival pressure, according to earlier media reports from November 2020.

Huafeng coal mine was renovated and expanded in 1958, and the mining depth has exceeded one kilometer. It is a modern enterprise with a special-grade quality standard, producing over one million tons of raw coal annually and employing more than ten thousand people, according to public information.

In March 2024, Huafeng coal mine was administratively penalized three times by the Tai'an City Energy Bureau for violating the production safety law and not complying with coal mine safety regulations, with total fines amounting to 320,000 yuan ($45,024), according to information from the Tianyancha app.

The coal mine flooding accident refers to a water disaster in which surface water and groundwater uncontrollably flow into the working face of a mine through fissures, faults, collapse areas, and other channels due to inadequate water control measures during the construction and production processes.

This can result in casualties among workers or property damage to the mine, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management's Publicity and Education Center.

Global Times