Work continues around the clock to rescue 29 miners believed to be still
alive but trapped underground after their mine flooded 3 days ago.

 BAISE CITY, GUANGXI ZHUANG AUTONOMOUS REGION, CHINA (JULY 22, 2008)
CCTV -
 Rescuers continued to struggle on Wednesday (July 23) to free at
least 29 miners trapped after water flooded into their mine on Monday (July
21) in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
    Seven have been confirmed dead in the flooded mine shaft, according to
state news agency Xinhua. China Daily, a national newspaper, said that six
bodies had been retrieved from the mine as the search continues to find the
missing miners.
    China Daily reported that a team of 1,000 rescue workers are on 24-hour
shifts to find the miners. Some 56 miners had been working in the mine when it
flooded on Monday. Seven miners escaped on their own and 13 have already been
rescued. 
    Concern is growing as the miners spend a third day trapped underground
and rescuers worried that low oxygen levels in the mine shafts would exhaust
the miners, leaving them with no strength to escape.
    A two kilometre ventilation pipe was installed on Tuesday afternoon
(July 22), China Daily reported, as Huang Yi, a spokesman for the State
Administration of Work Safety said the draining and ventilation would continue
as rescuers worked to search for the trapped miners.
    "The next stage the rescue measures include the speeding up of the
process of draining and ventilation, and the prevention of further disasters.
These measures each require careful planning," he said.
    One emergency worker said that the work would include installing pipes
to drain the water from the mine.
    He said work had already begun underground. 
    "Under the ground there are already three carts of pipes," he
said.  
    The disaster is the most recent in grim series of accidents to blight
China's coal mining industry which is the deadliest in the world. In the face
of huge demand and soaring profits, mine owners push production beyond safety
limits.
    A total of 3,786 Chinese coal miners died in gas blasts, flooding and
other accidents in 2007, down 20 percent from 2006 as the central government
cracked down on small and unsafe mines. 
    But in 2008, there has been a renewed focus on production, to offset
rising prices and supply disruptions.
    Officials have said that China, undergoing rapid industrialisation, may
need another decade before there is a drastic fall in mine and other
industrial deaths.