Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Solifuge]

Read the story here

Spoiler: Reposted for lazy folks (click to show/hide)

China Mine Flooding Update: 115 Miners Rescued Alive
5 April, 2010

World News (China): In a surprising development that is being described by many as a miracle, 115 miners were rescued alive on Monday from a coal mine in northern China that had been flooded by underground water over a week ago, reports China's State TV.
 
Last heard, rescuers were still working on reaching the 38 still trapped miners.

The television coverage showed the rescued miners being taken out in stretchers amid loud cheering by people around. The rescued workers are said to be in stable condition.

The Wangjialing mine flooded on March 28 when the 261 miners were working there. 108 workers could be reached immediately after flooding.

The present rescue had begun around midnight before Monday morning, two days after tapping sound was heard from within the mine.

50 rescue groups, comprising of 200 people in all were working tirelessly draining water, monitoring gas and pulling out miners, according to Wang Jun, governor of Shanxi province where the mine is located.

The latest mine accident is one in a series of mine accidents that are common in China. In 2009, 2,631 people died in such accidents.

On Monday, China began a two-month campaign to inspect safety regulations in mines and other industries that have had serious accidents

Due to seasonal flooding, hundreds of Chinese coal miners were trapped in a coal mine, for about a week. Officials took them for dead, but a few days back people reported hearing  tapping sounds comming from the mine, as the miners attempted to tunnel into an adjacent shaft. Rescue workers were dispatched to drain the water from the mine, and pump air down to the survivors below, and as of today, over 100 miners have been rescued from the mine, with hopes to find more.

According to the accounts I'd heard, during the flood they'd been clinging to the walls while awake, and lashing themselves to support beams at night, to keep them from being swept away into the depths. After the torrent slowed, they were trapped waist-deep in toxic, coal-blackened water for almost a week, and when they finally escaped they were starved and severely dehydrated.

Apparently this sort of thing isn't uncommon either... Chinese mines are reputed to be among the most dangerous in the industrialized world. In the wake of this, the State is commencing a governmental saftey inspection of all mines, so this sort of thing can be avoided in the future.

Call me callous, but hearing this story on NPR totally made me think of all the times I've accidentally pierced the aquifer in DF. I wonder if we'll ever see an in-game model for seasonal flooding, or asphyxiation from being trapped in sealed chambers?

[Cthulhu]

Dorfs 2D did have seasonal flooding.  It also had rivers at a certain distance in the mountain automatically no matter what, which probably made it easier.  I think we'll probably see it again.

[Aqizzar]

Far be it for me to suggest you show a little sympathy to your dwarves from now on.  Of course, those little idiots don't know how to designate their own tunnels.

[RedKing]

Apparently, the Chinese mine manager was ignoring all those reports of damp stone. (No, seriously...the miners had apparently been telling him the mine was springing leaks.)

[Blacken]

In the wake of this, the State is commencing a governmental saftey inspection of all mines, so this sort of thing can be avoided in the future.

Right. And I'm the Queen of England.

[Strife26]

In the wake of this, the State is commencing a governmental saftey inspection of all mines, so this sort of thing can be avoided in the future.

Right. And I'm the Queen of England.

And I actually work for EA and am actually the head of North Korea's Anti-Spy agency.

[RedKing]

In the wake of this, the State is commencing a governmental saftey inspection of all mines, so this sort of thing can be avoided in the future.

Right. And I'm the Queen of England.

And I actually work for EA and am actually the head of North Korea's Anti-Spy agency.

Honestly, they probably are. The central government in Beijing wants to fix this sort of thing. Not because they're a bunch of altruistic great guys, but because it's bad PR and "face" is paramount. The guys behind the contaminated cough syrup? Dead. The guys responsible for melamine in the milk? Dead. If this mine manager doesn't have some good high-level connections who owe him favors, he's probably looking at a lengthy prison sentence. If this had turned out worse with a lot of casualties, he'd probably be dead too.

Now, will the review actually accomplish anything? That remains to be seen. One of the biggest paradoxes of China is that for all that it's a "totalitarian" government, it's actually incredibly difficult for Beijing to make sure its will is carried out. Most of the time, government corruption in China occurs at the local and provincial levels, and they do all they can to keep the central government from finding out. Sadly, that's been the story of China since before the First Emperor.

[Blacken]

One of the biggest paradoxes of China is that for all that it's a "totalitarian" government, it's actually incredibly difficult for Beijing to make sure its will is carried out.

Not very paradoxical. Most autocratic systems of governance share that failing.

Representational governments, for all their occasional faults, have this nice habit of attaining the kind of buy-in that makes institutional corruption more difficult to sustain (though by no means immune to it).

[Solifuge]

Representational governments, for all their occasional faults, have this nice habit of attaining the kind of buy-in that makes institutional corruption more difficult to sustain (though by no means immune to it).

If only you knew about Detroit's mayoral history, over the last 25 years... one of the big reasons Detroit hasn't recovered from the riots several decades ago is because the Mayors have skimmed public money to buy cars for friends, personal luxury expenses, and all sorts of crafty embezzlement... but perhaps that's a story for another day.

But yeah, seeing that happen ruined a good bit of my faith in government, local or otherwise.

[Ampersand]

What most people don't realize is that the Chinese government is scared shitless of it's people. Really. It rules over one billion people, and if they ever stand up for themselves in any coherent way, the regime is done for. Any dissent must be put down, hard and fast, in the minds of the communist government, any anything that might inspire people to rise up against them must also be stamped out for the same reasons.

It is Brave New World and 1984 at the same time.

[Blacken]

Representational governments, for all their occasional faults, have this nice habit of attaining the kind of buy-in that makes institutional corruption more difficult to sustain (though by no means immune to it).

If only you knew about Detroit's mayoral history, over the last 25 years... one of the big reasons Detroit hasn't recovered from the riots several decades ago is because the Mayors have skimmed public money to buy cars for friends, personal luxury expenses, and all sorts of crafty embezzlement... but perhaps that's a story for another day.

Kwame LOLPatrick and friends are not news to me. But Detroit is something of a special case. There's not really enough left there, infrastructurally or in terms of population, to consider the government all that "representative"; I've heard jokes that Detroit has even more dead people voting than Chicago ever did.

What most people don't realize is that the Chinese government is scared shitless of it's people. Really. It rules over one billion people, and if they ever stand up for themselves in any coherent way, the regime is done for. Any dissent must be put down, hard and fast, in the minds of the communist government, any anything that might inspire people to rise up against them must also be stamped out for the same reasons.

I am reasonably certain anyone who can go "holy crap, a billion people is a lot more than four million people!" is aware of this. China is extremely precariously placed, and has been for most of their history.

"Really."

[Aqizzar]

If only you knew about Detroit's mayoral history, over the last 25 years... one of the big reasons Detroit hasn't recovered from the riots several decades ago is because the Mayors have skimmed public money to buy cars for friends, personal luxury expenses, and all sorts of crafty embezzlement... but perhaps that's a story for another day.

Kwame LOLPatrick and friends are not news to me. But Detroit is something of a special case. There's not really enough left there, infrastructurally or in terms of population, to consider the government all that "representative"; I've heard jokes that Detroit has even more dead people voting than Chicago ever did.

Don't forget the bears.  I had the pleasure of visiting Detroit about 15 years ago, and even as a child in the relatively better 90's I was going, "Man this place is a dump.  Why doesn't everybody just leave?"  But when wildlife are gentrifying your neighborhood, it's time to pack to pack it in.

Then they had to go and build a wall between the projects and uptown to keep the darkies out.  Yeah, the dream is over.

[Blacken]

Don't forget the bears.  I had the pleasure of visiting Detroit about 15 years ago, and even as a child in the relatively better 90's I was going, "Man this place is a dump.  Why doesn't everybody just leave?"  But when wildlife are gentrifying your neighborhood, it's time to pack to pack it in.

Yeah...Detroit needs urban renewal via high explosive. It'll never get it, but god, does it seriously need it.

On the other hand, you could probably buy most of a city block on the cheap. Would you want it? No. But you could do it.

Then they had to go and build a wall between the projects and uptown to keep the darkies out.  Yeah, the dream is over.

Eh. It has less to do with race and more to do with "holy shit, there be shankin'." That the majority of downtown is African-American makes it look bad, but if I was living there, I'd probably want barbed wire, land mines, and the National Guard between me and downtown.

[Aqizzar]

The average price of a "family sized" house - lot, building, and all - in Detroit is $18,000.  The goddamn Lions stadium sold for $583,000.  I was watching Michael Moore make an ass of himself in Capitalism: A Love Story (full disclosure, I'm a fan of his work, but not his attitude) and I kept thinking, "Dude, you could probably buy most of Flint and Detroit for a cool ten mil."  Let's see how Mr. Take-Your-Money-Back would do trying to run his own city.

[Solifuge]

I've played gigs in Detroit, and walked downtown at night, and I've felt reasonably safe. Yes, beyond a doubt it has issues, and I was not in the worst places, but it gets a much worse reputation than it deserves. It's like all the unsavory elements of most cities, just amplified a bit. At least no one's ever tried to sell me a watch like in DC or New York.