11 trapped miners rescued from gold mine in China

Beijing: Eleven miners, trapped underground for two weeks following a blast in a gold mine in east China’s Shandong Province, have been rescued, the state media reported on Sunday.

The rescuers set free two workers on Sunday, bringing the number of rescued workers to 11, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The first miner was rescued from the mine in the morning. The worker, said to be in an extremely weak condition, was rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Currently, 633 people and 407 equipment are at the site for rescue operations.

Twenty-two miners were trapped about 600 meters underground following an explosion on January 10 at a partially built gold mine in Qixia, under the city of Yantai, in Shandong Province.

Before Sunday, rescuers had established contact with only 10 of the miners, who are in good physical and psychological condition. Another is believed to have been dead, the report said.