China: A Coal miner found alive after 17 years underground

A group of coal miners in Urumqi, China, got a wild surprise while working in an old mine that had been abandoned for 17 years. An earthquake caused parts of the tunnel to collapse.

While checking out the tunnels, they found Chung Wai, a 59-year-old man who survived a crash back in 1999. He was in pretty rough shape and was quickly taken to a hospital for medical and psychological evaluations over the next few weeks.

Chung Wei is a miner who had been trapped underground for 17 years, along with the remains of 78 workers who didn’t make it when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the area. Luckily (or maybe not, depending on how you see it), Mr. Chung survived because there was still an air vent connecting him to the surface, allowing him to breathe enough to stay alive.

He managed to get by thanks to a stash of rice and water that was stored in an underground reservoir for emergencies like this. He survived by eating rats and mice that were in the mine, along with some moss that provided him with the only vitamins he could find. Even though he was in terrible physical and mental condition, he buried all his colleagues who didn’t survive the accident over the course of a year.

Mining accidents happen a lot in China, even though the government is trying to tackle the issue. Recently, authorities have been shutting down illegal mines that make up nearly 80% of all mines in the country. The closure of around 1,000 unlicensed mines last year helped cut the death toll by almost 50%.

But Mr. Chung's story is one of a kind and has even made it into the Guinness Book of Records. The previous record for surviving underground was 142 days, held by a British man named Geoff Smith. He chose to be buried in the backyard of his favorite pub, the Railway Inn, to break the record.