FUXIN, Liaoning Province: Li Yong gets up at around 7 in the morning even if he worked underground for eight hours the day before.

Li, 44, has his own routine, different from that of his miner colleagues. He generally walks around on the street the entire morning before going home for lunch. At 3 pm he enjoys an early dinner, because one hour later he goes into the coal pit hundreds of metres below the surface and works for another eight hours.

But February 18 was not routine.

At 3:30 pm, Li met six colleagues at the office of the Aiyou Colliery, located about 160 kilometres west of Shenyang in Northeast China's Liaoning Province. They dressed in heavy, grey work clothes and took a safety lamp and a respirator, which is standard procedure.

The team was assigned to dig a 200-metre tunnel with an excavation machine for a work platform 900 metres down in the ground, twice as much as the height of the world tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101.

Only 30 metres remained to be dug. "Barring the unforeseenwe will finish this tunnel on February 21," Li said.

But the work shift didn't end at midnight, as scheduled. It didn't end until Tuesday morning, when workers rescued the team after the tunnel in which they had been working collapsed.

'We got blocked'

He Lanbao was, at 21, the youngest of the seven miners. He has worked underground for less than one year.

"There is no indication before the accident," He recalled on Thursday in the Gereral Hospital Affiliated to Fuxin Mining Group.

"In fact, at that time, one colleague was asked to bring back tools, and the others were busy working on the tunnel.

"Suddenly, there came this big 'bang!' behind us, and the dust shocked us. The tunnel was totally blocked.

"Everyone was stunned for a while. Then some cried loudly, some ran aimlessly, and others smashed coal in front of them crazily.

Li became the first to calm down after several minutes and called on others to sit down around him.

"In fact, I was horrified," he said. "But if I wasn't able to appear composed while they kept on running around, it would have caused more trouble."

The other miners gathered around Li. The only sound was the wheeze echoing in the cave.

Li remembered what he told his colleagues: "Look, friends, we still have one ventilation and one water pipe. There is no problem to be here for eight to 10 days. And I believe people up there will save us as soon as possible. We will be OK."

No response. They all stared at the caved-in tunnel, with nobody knowing where any reason for hope would come from.

"This was the most difficult time in my life," Li said .

On the surface, rescue efforts began right after the accident. Almost 1,000 people, including security experts, a digging team, a demolition team; a transport team and a medical team were called into action.

"For the first time, I felt the time was flying past," said Wan Xingli, production officer of Fuxin Mining Group, which owns the mine. Wang led the 100-member team down to where they began to dig a life tunnel for those seven miners.

Utmost care is paramount. One wrong move could produce another cave-in or an explosion.

Back in the blocked tunnel. Li was still trying to build morale. "Leave one lamp and turn off the rest. We must save energy," he said. "The dark will drive people crazy.

"Time was crawling. The only watch stopped working, so nobody knew the time. Why was it moving so slowly?"

Signs of rescue

As the seven miners sat there, doing nothing but waiting, suddenly the first sign of hope came.

Somebody found a dark-coloured plastic bag that had been left behind. Inside were two pan cakes left by some careless working team before

"See? Even God does not want us to die," Li told his colleagues. "This helped them see a sign of hope."

Two pieces of pan cake for seven men. Each one received only a small part of the cake.

"That was the most delicious cake I ever ate," said He Lanbao, the young miner.

But there was bad news, too. Bad ventilation caused the tunnel to become warmer, causing the seven to drink more water. It wasn't long before the water jug was empty.

At first, they tried to sip from the one pipe that supplied water. Shortly afterwards, it too ran dry.

"Then we found the slurry," said Liu Rongjiang, another miner. "Nobody cared whether the water was dirty or not. We just wanted to satisfy the fire-like dryness in our throats."

Some want to sleep because of tiredness. Li, by then his voice croaking, wouldn't hear of it.

"Sleep is prohibited, I told them," Li said. "Once you fall asleep, you might never wake up again."

There was only one ventilation pipe, and the airflow was rather weak. If people moved away from the air, they might have suffocated. All they could do, it seemed, was wait for death.

More time passed. Three of the seven headlights had gone dark. No water left. No food. The seven in the tunnel became nervous again.

Li battled to stay conscious. "'Stay calm and save your strength,' I told myself. Our rescue colleagues know what to do."

Li decided it was time for everybody to talk about something. "Anything is OK," he told his colleagues. "Family, work and even the furniture."

Water, air and life

At 7:52 am, Tuesday, 35 hours after the cave-in, Liu Rongjiang heard the voice of drilling and then the sound of aiguilles those needle-like drill bits used on coal and other rock.

"We couldn't wait to disassemble its head and taste the cool water," Liu said.

Someone began crying.

Li heard someone ask him to knock twice on the drill and wait for a response. From the outside came two knocks back.

The seven miners looked at one another. Somebody asked: "How many times should we knock?"

"Seven," Li said. "That will tell them we are all alive."

Two seconds later, came seven knocks in response. The miners burst into cheers and tears.

"I don't know why we were crying. We just couldn't contain our excitement after so long a time of doubt and desperation," Liu said.

In order to provide more aid and collect detailed information, the rescue team drilled another tunnel and finished it at about 6 pm Monday.

Then the team transported water and milk inside.

"How are you now?" came the question from Liu Tianli, a rescue team member.

"Don't move. We will try our best to save you."

Then came the reply: "All of us are fine. But it is hot here, and we're very, very hungry. Give us food."

But that request was rejected. The seven had not eaten for a long time, and the medical team said that food might damage their stomachs. Instead, they sent milk.

At 5 am on Tuesday, all seven miners were on stretchers transported by the mine's lift to safety.

Later, one miner knew where he thought the credit belonged.

"We would never have been saved without our head, Li Yong," Liu Rongjiang said.

"Without him, we might have lost hope, and at least one of us might have been injured."

Li sounded like a teacher.

"Even when the worst things happen, never give up hope," he said. "And trust others to do their jobs."

Source: China Daily