2010-04-06 07:28

XIANGNING, Shanxi - Sixty of the 115 workers who were pulled out alive after being trapped for over a week in a flooded coal mine in north China will be transferred to big city hospitals for better medical treatment, local authorities late Monday.

Currently, the survivors are being treated at five hospitals near ?Wangjialing Coal Mine, which straddles Xiangning County, of Linfen City, and Hejin City, of Yuncheng City, in Shanxi Province.

The Shanxi provincial government and medical experts dispatched by the Health Ministry have decided to transfer 60 rescued miners to key hospitals in the provincial capital Taiyuan Tuesday to receive better treatment.

A special train will be deployed by the Ministry of Railways to take the patients to Taiyuan. The train will depart at 7:00 Tuesday morning and the trip will take 4 to 5 hours.

Each of the patients will be equipped with two medical staff.

Most of the rescued workers were in stable condition, but 26 were described in "relatively serious" condition, rescuers and doctors said.

Liu Qiang, a medical expert involved in the rescue, said after being trapped for more than 179 hours, the survivors were very weak and suffering from malnutrition. They had severe dehydration and skin infections from being in the water so long, he said.

Doctors have prepared treatment plans for each of the survivors.

Among the 36 survivors being treated at the Shanxi Aluminium Plant Hospital, some have been able to eat fluid food such as soup by late Monday, and some others said they felt hungry and wanted to eat more.

Also Monday, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions allocated 2 million yuan ($294,118) to help treat the rescued workers.