At least one worker was killed and four others remained missing
in a flooded colliery in east China's Fujian Province, local authority said on
Tuesday.
Mountain torrents flushed the Chankeng coal mine of Yongding
County, in Fujian's farmost western area that has not been affected
by tropical storm Krosa, at about 11:00 a.m. Sunday, trapping two
electricians working underground, according to the provincial coal
production watchdog.
Three workers who entered the shaft to rescue them also failed
to get out of the flooded pit.
Rescuers retrieved the body of one of the trapped people on
Tuesday and are still searching for the four missing.
Krosa churned its way to the East China Sea on Monday after
pounding China's southeast coast for more than 26 hours. It made
landfall in the bordering area between Zhejiang and Fujian
provinces on Sunday afternoon as a typhoon and quickly weakened to
a tropical storm without causing deaths on the Chinese
mainland.
It has brought gales and downpours, prompting evacuation of more
than 1.4 million people and incurring nearly 8 billion yuan (over
US$1 billion) in economic losses in the two worst-hit provinces.
The storm also affected Anhui Province and Shanghai before it left
Chinese mainland.
(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2007)