The Wangjialing coal mine flood was an

incident Incident may refer to: * A property of a graph in graph theory * ''Incident'' (film), a 1948 film noir * Incident (festival), a cultural festival of The National Institute of Technology in Surathkal, Karnataka, India * Incident (Scientology), a ...

that began on Sunday, March 28, 2010, when underground water flooded parts of the Wangjialing coal mine in the

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

province of

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. A total of 261 people were in the mine when workers first broke through an abandoned shaft that was filled with water. Over 100 managed to escape, but 153 workers were trapped in nine different platforms of the mine. Television reports spoke of the survivors attaching themselves by belts to the wall of the mine as waters rushed in. They hung there for three days until a mine cart drifted by and they got in. Most workers are safe with a few dozen still trapped as of 5 April, if the official numbers are correct; families claim the actual number is higher. The mine belongs to state-owned Huajin Coking Coal Co. Ltd. At the time, workers were building the mine's infrastructure to allow it to produce 6 million tons of coal per year at full production.

Location

Wangjialing (王家嶺/王家岭) is in Shanxi province's south-west. More specifically, it sits on Mount Longmen. The mine is located between the town of Fancun (樊村镇) southeast of the mountain) and Xiahua Township (下化乡; northwest of the mountain) in

Hejin Hejin () is a county-level city of Yuncheng City, in the southwest of Shanxi province, People's Republic of China, located on the east (left) bank of the Yellow River. It borders Jishan and Wanrong counties to the east and south, Linfen to the ...

City and Xipo (西坡镇; northeast of the mountain) in

Xiangning County Xiangning County () is a county in the southwest of Shanxi province, China, bordering Shaanxi province across the Yellow River to the west. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Linfen. The county spans an area of , and i ...

. Hejin and Xiangning are both in Shanxi province but belong to different

prefecture-level cities A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of China' ...

: Hejin is in

Yuncheng Yuncheng is the southernmost prefecture-level city in Shanxi province, People's Republic of China. It borders Linfen and Jincheng municipalities to the north and east, and Henan (Luoyang and Jiyuan to the east, Sanmenxia to the south) and Shaan ...

while Xiangning belongs to

Linfen Linfen is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shanxi province, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the west. It is situated along the banks of the Fen River. It has an area of and according to the 2020 Census, a population of 3,976,4 ...

. The mine is located near bridges that span the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...

between Shanxi and

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...

provinces.

Rescue efforts

More than 3,000 rescue workers are working to pump out the water, equivalent in volume to 55 Olympic swimming pools. Rescuers are facing black, murky water and a high concentration of toxic gas. After a week of being trapped, 9 workers were rescued during the early morning hours of April 5, and sent to a hospital in

. In the same day, a total of 115 trapped workers had been rescued and were quickly sent to hospitals; 26 of them were in a poor state of health. According to survivors, some ate paper and chewed on coal for hunger relief. Until April 9 morning (local time), 23 victims have been confirmed dead. It is said that the remaining 15 trapped people had been located, but there are difficulties in approaching them. Rescuers said on April 8 that the chance of surviving for 14 workers in those 15 was "nearly zero" for they were quite near the point where the underground flood began to pour into the tunnel. However, the search for them is still ongoing.

References

External links

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Additional source

NOW TV - 災難救援可以做假,中國共產黨會唔會都係假?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wangjialing Coal Mine Flood Coal mining disasters in China 2010 mining disasters 2010 disasters in China History of Shanxi 2010 floods in Asia March 2010 events in China

Location

Rescue efforts

See also

References

External links

Additional source