Xintai, China – Distressed family members shouted and scuffled with guards after a third day without word on 172 miners trapped in a flooded mine in eastern China, where rescue crews began pumping water Sunday.
Paramilitary police and emergency crews plugged a breach in a dike that burst Friday after heavy rains, flooding the Huayuan Mining Co. mine, officials and state media said. As industrial pumps began siphoning water that stood 65 feet deep in the shaft, experts analyzed accident data to try to locate the missing miners, a provincial official said.
In contrast to the blanket coverage in the U.S. of efforts to rescue six trapped miners in Utah, accounts in China’s wholly state-owned media have been terse. Reports focused Sunday on the successful mending of the breach but said little about the trapped miners – a sign that the government remains nervous about public anger over perceived mistreatment.
Dozens of relatives – sobbing mothers and children among them – shouted, “Why don’t you come out?” at officials who stood with police and security guards inside Huayuan’s sprawling gated compound.
At one point, the crowd surged, bending an aluminum gate and setting off a fracas of shoving. Later, a middle-aged woman broke through, only to be wrestled away by two guards in camouflage.
BLACKSBURG, Va.
Carbon monoxide injures at least 19
A carbon-monoxide leak at an off-campus apartment complex left two Virginia Tech students in critical condition and sent 17 other people to hospitals Sunday, police said.
Five women, all students, were found unconscious in their beds in a unit at the Collegiate Suites complex, Capt. Bruce Bradbery said. The three roommates who arrived at the hospital in serious condition were upgraded to stable condition late Sunday, officials reported.
Officials said the cause appeared to be a faulty valve on a water heater.
The leak came four months after 32 people were killed by a student gunman in April. Fall-semester classes begin today.
WINONA, Minn.
12 dead as Erin’s wake smacks into Midwest
Rivers swollen by as much as a foot of rain washed away houses and roads and killed at least 12 people as the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin soaked the Midwest, authorities said Sunday.
Hundreds of people in southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin were evacuated, some by boat off rooftops.
“I cannot describe the terror of it all. I’m just glad to be alive,” said Sean Wehlage, 29, who had climbed onto the roof of his one-story home in Stockton.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered 240 National Guard soldiers to the area, and the Red Cross set up emergency shelters.
In Carnegie, Okla., the wife, daughter and granddaughter of Kiowa Chief Billy Horse were missing after their vehicle was swept from a state highway by rising floodwaters, said Richard Kauahquo, a member of the tribe’s business committee.
LOS ANGELES
Immigrant mom held, faces deportation
An illegal immigrant who stayed in a Chicago church for a year to avoid separation from her 8-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, was arrested Sunday and being processed for deportation.
Elvira Arellano, who went to Los Angeles to campaign for immigration reform, was arrested about 1:30 p.m. outside a church where she had been speaking to reporters, said the Rev. Walter Coleman of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where she sought sanctuary.
Immigration activists promised protests and vigils.
At a Los Angeles news conference, Arellano’s son, Saul, hid behind Coleman’s wife, Emma Lo zano, and wiped away tears. Lo zano said she is the boy’s legal guardian.
“He’s taking it better than we thought he would,” said Lozano.
MINNEAPOLIS
Bridge toll at 12 as man’s body is found
The body of a man missing since an Interstate 35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River was recovered early Sunday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 12, authorities said.
The Hennepin County medical examiner’s office identified the remains as those of Scott Sathers, 30, of Maple Grove.
Divers continued to search for the last person on the list of the missing, Greg Jolstad, 45, of Mora, who was part of the construction team doing surface repairs on the bridge when it went down Aug. 1.
