(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-17 15:01

NANCHANG -- The 14 miners who were trapped for more than a day in a flooded colliery in east China's Jiangxi Province were rescued Friday.

Rescuers entered the shaft on Friday morning and lifted the 14 to the ground by 2:10 pm  after 32 hours.

Each of the workers, weak and blindfolded, was carried by two rescuers up to the ground. Some of them were still able to speak despite being starved for more than 30 hours.

Rescuers had fed them milk before pulling them out of the shaft.

They were greeted with roars and applause from more than 100 rescuers, family members, local officials and police officers gathering anxiously outside the flooded pit.

They are hospitalized and were described as stable, doctors said.

The miners had found high ground above the four-meter-deep floodwater with ventilation. The water level dropped to two meters on Friday morning and one meter by the time they were rescued, thanks to the continuous pumping.

Nie Xingen, 45, said he ran into the shaft to inform other workers about the flood, but was not able to get out.

"I was so starving last night that I swallowed some pieces of paper box after soaking them in water," said Nie.

The head of the mining team, Zhu Xingen, said he ate peanut shells.

The 14 were trapped underground after floodwater inundated the Zhayi colliery in Fengcheng County at 4:50 a.m. on Thursday. Fifteen miners were working at the time and one managed to escape.

The township-level mine has an annual output of 30,000 tons.

The provincial work safety and mining authorities have ordered all coal mines in the region to halt operations and carry out safety inspections.

The emergency circular, issued on Thursday following three deadly mine accidents that left eight dead over the past four days, said mining operations could not be resumed until safety problems were eliminated.

The accident occurred after another colliery in Henan Province was flooded on July 29, when 102 miners were working underground.

Thirty-three managed to escape and 69 were rescued after being trapped for more than three days, in an operation described by the head of China's work safety watchdog as "one of the most successful rescue operations in recent years".

Rescuers poured more than 500 liters of milk through an 800-meter ventilation pipe to feed the miners who used their helmets to catch the milk, their only source of food in 76 hours.