THE FINAL 45 miners trapped in a coal mine in China since last Thursday have been safely brought to the surface by rescue workers.

Eight people lost their lives as a result of the incident, while a further 21 were earlier brought to safety.

On the evening of 3 November, dozens of workers were trapped in the mine following a 2.9-magnitude earthquake hitting Sanmenxia City, in China’s central Henan province. The quake triggered a rock slide, which blocked the entrance to one the mine’s main shafts, Xinhua News reports.

The miners brought to the surface today had been trapped underground for about 40 hours.

Earlier, state broadcaster CCTV showed rescuers with helmets and oxygen tanks carrying the workers out of the mine shaft to ambulances. The miners lay on stretchers, wrapped with blankets with their eyes covered by towels to prevent them from being damaged by the sudden exposure to light after hours of being trapped.

Luo Lin, head of the State Administration for Work Safety, praised the rescue after the last miner was rushed away in an ambulance, but said more work needed to be done to promote safety.

“The alarm bell of work safety must keep ringing. Enterprises should pay attention to work safety when the coal demand is high. … They should not allow any operation that violates (safety) rules or regulations,” he said.

The rescue was the biggest in the country since April 2010, when 115 miners were pulled out alive after being trapped for eight days in a mine in northern China.

Additional reporting by the AP