More than 100 Chinese miners were pulled out alive April 5 after being trapped for over a week in a flooded coal mine, where some ate sawdust and strapped themselves to the shafts' walls with their belts to avoid drowning while they slept.

Of the 153 initially trapped in Wangjialing coal mine in Shanxi province, northern China, 38 miners remained trapped. Although authorities expressed confidence they could be saved, rescuers April 6 retrieved the first five bodies from the flooded mine.

The miners had been trapped since March 28 when workers digging tunnels broke into a water-filled abandoned shaft. The first signs of life from underground came April 2, when tapping could be heard coming up pipes being used to pump water out of the flooded shaft.