Captured Chinese miners ask for gruel and gherkins as the rescue operation continues

Beijing – It will soon be day ten of an extremely slow mine rescue operation in China’s eastern Shandong province. State media say 22 workers were more than 2,000 feet underground after an explosion damaged the access shaft to the gold mine on Jan. 10.

Since then, rescue efforts have continued, with workers drilling a series of small boreholes deep into the ground to reach the trapped miners. So far they’ve sent at least three rounds of food and medicine.

It also enabled rescuers to communicate with the captured men – first through handwritten notes and now over a telephone line. After a urgent, first medical request and painkillers asked the miners on Tuesday for porridge and pickles to send down.

A note that emerged on Sunday confirmed that there were 12 miners alive at the time – 11 of them together, but one lingered about 50 meters below the group. They said they suffered from toxic fumes and rising water levels.

The fate of the other 10 miners was still unclear on Tuesday. Rescuers knocked on the drill pipe leading to them early Monday, but there was no response.

The boreholes work for food and medicine, but they’re only about a foot wide, so they don’t help bring the trapped miners back to the surface.

Wider rescue shafts are being drilled, but as of Tuesday, the main shaft remained the only way in or out, and officials said the stability of that passage could still not be verified.