The 11 miners rescued on Sunday from a mine in Hebei Province said they survived their five-day ordeal by eating orange peel, pages of their newspapers and a leather belt.

The men were pulled to safety from the privately owned, illegally operated iron and gold mine in Chengde at about 1 am.

Although the mine collapsed last Monday afternoon, trapping the men deep underground, the incident was not reported to the local authorities until Thursday.

"We drank dirty water and ate newspaper pages and orange peel when we got hungry," the Beijing Times quoted Wu Pengyong, a 33-year-old miner, as saying.

"Later we got really hungry. I had a leather belt so I boiled it and gave everyone a piece to eat," Wu said.

The miners said they had first tried to dig themselves free, but were forced to quit as their efforts caused new cave-ins.

Talking about the initial collapse, Xie Zhaoyu said he was drilling when the power suddenly went off and rocks began falling around him.

"We weren't scared at first because we have been in that sort of situation many times before," he said.

It was not until the men realized that all of the exit routes were blocked that they became frightened, Xie said.

Another of the miners, 38-year-old Bai Guoxin, said spirits rose when they heard the sound of excavators. They then began banging on the walls to indicate their position to the rescue team.

"We are so grateful to those rescuers," Bai said.

According to the Beijing Times, mine owner Xiao Jun delayed reporting the accident until after he had tried launching his own rescue operation.

After failing to make any progress he contacted the local authorities on Thursday.

The mine has been operating illegally for the past five years, the newspaper reported.

At a meeting held to discuss the incident on Sunday, Hebei's Vice-Governor Zhang He vowed to severely punish the mine owner and related officials.

(China Daily, December 11, 2007)