Society

10 workers alive after 30 hours in collapsed tunnel

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-07-13 06:28

BINYANG, Guangxi - Ten workers who had been trapped for about 30 hours in a collapsed railway tunnel remained alive, rescuers said Monday.

Rescuers drilled through a tunnel at 8:25 p.m. Monday, finding all the ten trapped workers were still alive and in sound condition.

Rescuers kept sending food and water through ventilation shafts to the trapped and were busy preparing for small-scale explosions to take them out.

A 40-50 meter long section of a railway tunnel being built in Binyang County of Nanning, capital southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, collapsed at about 4 p.m. Sunday, trapping 10 miners, according to the rescue headquarters.

The workers were stranded in a space of 8 meters long in the collapsed part. Rescuers were building supporting structures before drilling passages to get them out, said Wu Wenning, a railway officer of Nanning.

The tunnel construction project has been undertaken by the No. 18 Bureau of the China Railway Group Ltd. for a rail line connecting Nanning and Litang, an industrial town in Guangxi.