Awards offered for rescue of trapped miners
Updated: 2011-07-07 06:44
(Xinhua)
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HESHAN, Guangxi - Rescuers have been offered 2 million yuan ($309,143) for each miner they pull out alive from a collapsed colliery in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, local authorities said Wednesday.
Six of the 19 trapped miners were believed to be 320 meters underground and had the highest chance of survival, "so they are our priority now," said Zhou Changqing, deputy commander of the rescue command center.
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"We are very sorry for what has happened and our company is under unprecedented mental and moral pressure. We will do our utmost to rescue them," said Yang Yaodong, director of the company.
Yang said the company will adopt advanced mining technologies and improve miners' working environment so as to avoid such tragedies in the future.
More than 80 rescuers are working around the clock to dig through a sludge-flooded tunnel to reach the miners.
The collapse occurred midday Saturday after rain-saturated earth on the surface collapsed into a shaft.
Forty-nine of 71 miners managed to escape soon after the collapse, and rescuers have retrieved three bodies of dead miners.
The families of the three dead have signed compensation deals with the mining company with each family being expected to get 400,000 to 600,000 yuan in compensation. The miner's bodies have been cremated.