Survivors pulled out of Chinese mine five days after collapse

Rescuers using infrared cameras to peer into a wrecked mine in China have found eight surviving miners trapped for five days after a collapse so violent it registered as a seismic event.

The Christmas Day disaster at the gypsum mine in Shandong province killed at least one worker. Nine others remain missing.

Infrared cameras detected the surviving miners waving their hands and rescuers were drawing up plans to pull them to safety, said state broadcaster China Central Television.

The rescuers sent supplies underground to the trapped men.

The workers were weak with hunger but otherwise were in good health and told rescuers that they were in passages underground that were intact.

Two days after the collapse, the owner of the mine, Ma Congbo, jumped into a well and drowned in an apparent suicide.

Four top officials in Pingyi county, where the mine is located, have been sacked.

The collapse was so massive that the national earthquake bureau detected a quiver with a magnitude of 4.0 at the mine site.

Last year, 931 people were killed in mine accidents across China, drastically down from the year 2002, when nearly 7,000 died.

Video: Owner of collapsed gypsum mine in east China that killed one and trapped 17 committed suicide pic.twitter.com/TyqYuj0FyR

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) December 27, 2015