In June, at Mining District No. 3 of the Qinglan Mining Group in the Yunling Mountains.
A roof collapse triggered by a magnitude 4.2 tectonic earthquake buried thirty-six miners three hundred meters underground. Seven were trapped near the No. 3 adit. All communications were down, ventilation had stopped, the backup power would last only eighteen hours, and the water level in the circulation system was rising four centimeters an hour.
Li Xiang, a technician at the dispatch center, used a record card at the bottom of the mine to make a survival chart: power, water, air, watch duty, all accounted for across seven people.
Above ground, retired combat engineer Zhou Yan stood on the slope beside the collapse. With a blasting plan he admitted had only a sixty percent chance of success, he asked the on-site commander to sign it with him.
One hundred and forty-seven meters of rock. One team was digging from one side, another from the other.
At the deepest point underground lay an old blueprint from forty years ago. It showed a dashed line marked
