A Chinese woman buried under a mountain of sand reportedly survived because her hard hat had trapped enough air for her to breathe until rescuers dug her out.
“The accident happened in the county of Jinjiang in southeast China’s Fujian province when Mingmei Xiong, 34, fell into the sandpit nearly 80 feet deep on the construction site, and had a wall of sand fall on top of her,” according to a report.
She was buried for approximately 30 minutes beforew help arrived.
“We reached her head but the big problem was that the soft, shifting sand would cover her as fast as we could dig it out. It was like the sand did not want to let her go,” said rescuer Shaiming Liang.
One fireman was lowered into the hole by rope to clear away the sand by the woman’s head.
Fire brigade spokesman Chung Pan, 45, said: ‘It had to be done with extreme care. The sand was fine and wanted to move in one direction only – down on to the head of the trapped victim. It was very tense, a real race against time before there was another major collapse.’
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