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Miners slowly recovering after 25 days of ordeal

By Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-16 10:08

GUIYANG: The three survivors trapped in a flooded mine for 25 days in Southwest China's Guizhou province are smiling, reading newspapers in bed and feeling lucky to be alive, but doctors say their path to recovery is still far from over.

Wang Quanjie and Zhao Weixing, both 36, and Wang Kuangwei, 35, were buried by mountains of rocks in the Xinqiao mine in Qinglong county after it flooded on June 17 and were rescued on July 12. The flooded mine buried 11 and killed two.

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The three are now speaking, moving around in bed and are on a liquid diet, said Zhou Li, chief of the department of medical affairs at the Affiliated Hospital of Guiyang Medical College.

Normally, a person can survive no more than 10 days without food or water but the miners lived off water trickling into the cave and eating pieces of wood in a mine shaft.

"When I visited them this morning in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital's internal medicine department, I happened to see them reading newspapers," said hospital chief Wang Xiaolin.

Wang said the trio could recall what happened to them after the mine had flooded.

"They felt very happy when I said they were lucky to have challenged the limits of life and survived," he told China Daily.

Wang, who leads an expert panel in the rescue and treatment of the trio, said that their symptoms of dehydration have disappeared.

"But their intestinal function has been severely damaged," he said.

When the three were found, they were skin and bones. Wang Quanjie, who normally weighs around 65 kg, was less than 40 kg when rescued. Zhao, who had weighed more than 60 kg, was about 40 kg.

Doctors are afraid they will suffer from infection and have forbidden family members from visiting them.

"Family members are not even allowed to talk with them on mobile phones. They are very weak. Excitement may exhaust them and deteriorate their health," said Luo Ling, a nurse taking care of the trio in the intensive care unit.

When the miners were rescued, their eyes were covered with a black cloth since they had stayed underground for a long period of time without sunlight. Around 8 pm on Tuesday, the black wraps were removed and the curtain in the ICU was opened.

Rescuers are still searching for the 11 miners, said Chen Qing, deputy secretary general of the Qianxinan prefecture which has Qinglong under its administration.