Seven men have been rescued from a gold mine following a 14-day ordeal after an explosion underground.
The first exhausted man to be rescued from a mine in northern China was rushed to hospital, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Footage showed the moment the man was lifted out of the mine shaft, covered in a blanket with a black blindfold over his eyes.
He is "extremely weak", according to a post on CCTV's Weibo microblog site.
Search teams rescued three more men from a different section of the mine, including one who was injured and another three later on.
One miner was killed in the blast in the Hushan mine, in Qixia, a major gold-producing region, on January 10.
Twenty-two workers were trapped and 11 had not been in contact with rescue teams, according to a Xinhua report from last week.
The rescued miner was found in a different section of the
mine from a group of 10 men who have been receiving supplies of food and medicine, reports Reuters.
Officials said on Thursday it could take another two weeks
to clear "severe blockages" before they could drill shafts to
reach the 10 men.
The group have been using laser pointers and loudspeakers to try to find their missing colleagues, state media reported on Friday.
China's ruling Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily, said: "The physical condition, psychological condition and living environment of 10 miners in the middle section of the mine are good."
But security is said to be tight at the scene with a medical tent set up to carry out coronavirus tests for rescue workers at the site entrance.
About 570 people are said to be involved in the rescue.
China's mines are among the world's deadliest. It has
recorded 573 mine-related deaths in 2020, according to the
National Mine Safety Administration.
