A miner was digging coal in a pitch-black mine, and when he went down, water suddenly began to spray on the wall of the cave, and then a huge wall of water pounced on them, and in just a few minutes, the water blocked the exit of the mine.
The miners who fled to the highest point found themselves in a desperate situation, the water level in the mine gradually approaching them, leaving them less and less space, and more deadly, the air was getting thinner and thinner.
Why is there so much water in the mine at the good end? And how can the 18 trapped miners escape?
The accident occurred in a mining town in the United States, where large and small mines are the backbone of the economy, and 80% of the men in the town work in the mines.
On this day, 18 miners came to the mine for the evening shift, and according to the custom, they were divided into two teams, led by the first team of foreman John and the second team of foreman Bailey.
A team of responsible locations was close to an abandoned mine, and according to the work drawings, the distance was 91 meters, but the miners did not expect that the drawings were problematic.
In fact, the abandoned mining area was just a few meters away from them, and the miners continued to dig as usual until a miner dug through the two mines.
John, the foreman, first noticed a leak in the cave wall and shouted for the surrounding workers to evacuate, but what he did not expect was that the leak was more serious than he thought.
A huge wall of water suddenly rushed into the entire mine tunnel, the 60-ton shearer was overturned like a toy, and in the face of the menacing current, John had to stop fleeing and quickly jumped into a slightly higher dodge hole, which avoided the end of being swept away by the water.
Although John was the closest to the site of the accident, the most dangerous person was not him, but the second team working in another tunnel in the mine.
Their position was the lowest in the whole mine, and the water was bound to flood them first, but at this time the people of the second team knew nothing about the torrent that was rushing, but fortunately the foreman of the second team, Bailey, soon received a call from the first team.
Putting down the phone, he quickly informed all the members of the second team and told them to evacuate the mine quickly, but most of the miners were a little suspicious of the authenticity of the news, so they chose to take the minecart to the wellhead, and only Bailey sensed the seriousness of the water leakage in the anxious tone of the other party.
He and another old miner jumped into an electric transporter and started the car to rush quickly toward the exit, and they had only one way to escape, and that was to drive back along the mine road.
After passing through a group of mine crossings, heading to the wellhead to return to the surface, Bailey and bailey drove electric transport vehicles to the intersection first, but the sight in front of them made their hearts sink, and the water almost filled the entire intersection, and part of the top of the mine road was also submerged inside.
Just when the two were desperate and desperate, Bailey, who was familiar with the mine road, suddenly thought that there might be another way for them to escape.
On the left side of the mine tunnel there is a separate ventilation tunnel, enclosed by cement stones, where it is likely that there is no water inlet yet.
Due to the tight time, after driving to the vent, Bailey did not have time to leave any information, and could only turn on the electric car lights to shoot directly into the vent, so as to give a hint to the miners behind.
They went through two closed doors to the ventilation duct, and sure enough, as Bailey had thought, it was not flooded, the water was blocked out by concrete blocks, but the roar of the water crashing on the wall in the passage, and the constant spray of water around them, were telling the two about the ferocity of the leak.
The two men climbed as fast as they could to the wellhead, and after climbing 1.5 kilometers, the Baileys finally returned to the ground, but no one was heard in the ventilation channel.
A few minutes later, several other miners in minecarts also came to the fork in the road, also stunned by the sight in front of them, and only then did they understand how serious the matter really was.
Faced with the rising water level, they had no choice but to retreat, and everyone thought they were bound to die, until one of the miners found the clue left by Bailey, and they immediately reacted and could escape from here.
Just when several people were desperately climbing up along the ventilation channel, the closed door could no longer withstand the huge water pressure, and the bang was pushed open, and the surging water instantly rushed into the vent, rushing the escape team to pieces.
250 million litres of water suddenly poured into the mine, and 18 miners struggled to survive, seven of whom were trapped in a water-filled ventilation duct that would soon drown if they didn't find a way to escape.
The current washed away the miners' eyes and hard hats, leaving them unsteady in the water, and the only thing they could do was to try to maintain their balance.
After about 15 minutes of buoyancy, Bailey, who was waiting at the wellhead, finally saw the lights inside, and the vent from which all 7 trapped miners had successfully escaped.
At this time, the time has come to 9:35 p.m., 45 minutes have passed since the mine accident, the mine office has become a rescue command center, the mine owner through the analysis of the mine drawings, they quickly learned that the water source comes from the adjacent abandoned mine pit, and the water storage inside has reached 250 million tons, which can completely submerge the entire mine.
The miners of the second team were lucky to escape from the mine, but the team closest to the scene of the incident was not so lucky, and the turbulent water separated the captain John from his co-workers, who signaled them to leave quickly.
Because at this speed of the current, he absolutely could not swim, and the workers had no choice but to leave and try to escape before the water flooded the mine.
But by this time the intersection of the mine was already filled with water, and unless some of them could swim for half an hour in one breath, they would be looking for their own death if they wanted to swim out.
At the same time, after learning the news, Rod, a mine safety expert, quickly rushed to the mine site, and after learning the details of the mine accident, Rod brought himself into the perspective of the trapped miners and quickly made a judgment.
If the remaining 9 miners still survive, their current position may only be at the highest point of the mine, near the site where a team of miners operates, and the most important thing now is to drill a hole from the ground to the highest point.
Hoping to get in touch with the trapped people through this drill, police informed the miners' families of the accident and received them to a nearby fire station waiting for news.
At one o'clock in the morning, Captain John was trying his best to cross the water, and just as he was about to make a desperate attempt, his co-workers rushed back, along with a forklift.
They regressed the forklift to the edge of the current, placed the huge bucket on the surface of the water, and saved John.
However, except for John, who escaped death, the rest of the people did not have any expression of joy, because the real despair they could not solve, if the external rescue did not come in time, then they would all become undead in the water.
At 2:50 a.m., the rigs transferred from the mine began to penetrate the ground, which was driven by diesel and drilled into the ground through a compressor, requiring at least two hours to drill at a depth of 75 meters.
In the mine, the miners had been trapped for more than six hours, and in order to block the rising water level, they began to spontaneously pile stones in the passage, but an even bigger crisis was in front of them.
It was the thinning oxygen in the mine, and many people began to feel that it was difficult to breathe, and the stones in their hands became unusually heavy, but no one wanted to stop, because they knew that this would buy more time for the rescue.
On the ground, the drilling rig is working non-stop, and the mine manager has also dispatched all the nearby pumps to drain the mine urgently, discharging millions of liters of water outward, but there is no obvious help for the amount of water in the entire mine.
At five o'clock in the morning, the drill bit drilled to the bottom of the mine, and the workers lay around the drill hole, breathing in the air from the outside world, which not only gave the workers hope, but also gave them a medium to convey information to the outside world.
The workers picked up the tools scattered on the ground and rhythmically tapped on the drill bit, and this sound was just heard by the staff of the drill, in order to confirm that this was the signal of the miners to start the car, they tapped on the drill with the same frequency, and soon the miners below also responded, and the local rescuers cheered.
The confirmation of the miners' survival shows that their overnight efforts were worthwhile, but bigger questions arise about how they can rescue trapped miners.
There was a water leak in the mine, the miners were trapped in the 75-meter-deep mine, and the engineers used the drilling to penetrate the ground to provide oxygen to the miners, but the water level in the mine was still rising, how exactly did the 9 miners return to the surface?
According to the engineers' calculations, without any interference, the water in the mine would be filled up in an hour, and the only way to rescue the miners was to drill a larger hole with a drill, large enough for the miners to pass.
However, there was no such drilling machine on the site, they called around to inquire, and eventually they found such a drilling rig in a natural gas well.
At 5:30 a.m., the local police opened the way and quickly sent the large rig to the accident mine, but the rig needed nine small things to arrive at the earliest, leaving only an hour for the miners.
After some discussion among the engineers on site, they decided to send a huge amount of air to the mine, forming an air bag inside the mine to slow down the rise of the water level.
The operators adjusted the air pressure of the rig to the maximum, delivering air to the mine through a compressor nine hours after the accident.
Under the mine, the situation of the miners is getting worse and worse, the water flow is only 20 meters away from them, and many people have torn off the cardboard around them and written their suicide notes.
Most people do not have hope for their survival, rescue operations on the ground are still in full swing, and new pumps are constantly being added to the pumping work.
From above the mine, you can see that the water in the mine has flooded out, forming a lake at the mouth of the mine, and John the miner has found the bottle next to him, slowly sinking. The rate at which the water level rises has decreased significantly, which is where air packing and pumping work is at play.
The next afternoon, at 2:30, the large drilling rig finally arrived at the mine, and many media also surrounded the place, and everyone was looking forward to the staff of the rig to bring a new breakthrough to the rescue operation.
The rescue was further aided by the public's attention, and under the organization of the local government, a large number of engineering pairs with pumping equipment and drilling equipment gathered here, working day and night.
On the fourth day of the mine disaster, when the large drilling rig was about to drill the mine, the engineers called off the plan, because it was calculated that if the mine was drilled now, it would most likely invalidate the air package, causing the water in the mine to completely submerge the miners, so it was necessary to wait until the water volume dropped to a certain safe level before continuing to drill.
By the 43rd hour of the accident, there were 12 large pumping machines pumping water in the mine, discharging more than 100,000 liters per minute, but the miners had lost contact with the ground, and everyone did not know whether they were still alive.
After another 8 hours of continuous drainage, the water level finally dropped to a controllable range, and the staff of the rig was ordered to drill the last 6 meters away, and they lowered the life capsule from the borehole, hoping that it would carry the miners out of the ground.
After 15 minutes, one miner was rescued and told that all the miners were still alive, and the rescuers at the scene were given the greatest comfort.
The rescue of this mining disaster not only saved 9 lives, it also created a modern society, and the common measures and standard rescue procedures for the rescue of miners are of valuable reference significance to major mines.