Early morning, 5.25am.
Jiushu and 113 other newly recruited miners, together with 16 technicians from the engineering department, took the elevator to a mine shaft about 370 meters deep to carry out temporary inspection and maintenance of the mine shaft passages, mining equipment and pipelines.
This is a coal mine with deep tunnels and dim lighting. After everyone arrived at the work area, people from the engineering department temporarily divided Jiushu and his team into teams, and began to inspect and maintain the tunnel using the old-for-new method.
It is necessary to mention here that due to the tropical rainforest climate along the coast of Longcheng, the natural conditions for mining are subject to many variables. For example, this emergency repair was carried out in response to a sudden rainstorm.
Heavy rain may cause landslides, mudslides, and underground river bursting, which may not affect ordinary people, but have a huge impact on mines.
For example, if you have dug a mine in the mountains and are doing semi-open-pit mining, but suddenly there is heavy rain for three consecutive days, causing mudslides or landslides. The rock and soil layers that are forced to move may be deformed, and once they are squeezed into the working area of the mine, it will become very dangerous. This series of natural conditions full of accidents cannot be calculated by any precision instrument.
No matter how powerful the equipment is, it is impossible to monitor the movement of soil and the hardness of rocks inside the mountain, etc. Therefore, temporary inspection and maintenance are also essential qualities in the mining industry.
…
In the main tunnel of Mine No. 03, Uncle Jiu, who is over 50 years old, has been following the people from the engineering department to carry out maintenance because of his rich experience.
After working in the tunnel for about half an hour, the group did not find any abnormalities. The main tunnel wall was very solid and the data from various detection equipment were normal.
"Engineer Li, everything is fine." A young man wiped the sweat off his face and said softly, "Fill out the form and report the values."
Engineer Li is the person in charge of Tunnel No. 03 of the Engineering Department. He drank some wine before going to bed at night. Although he is sober now, his eyes are still red.
"Go and collect the data of each work area. I will report it together. Otherwise, the monitoring department will have to wait." Engineer Li dusted off his body and shouted on the intercom: "Equipment maintenance team, hurry up and send the data report over."
“Tramp!”
When everyone was about to report the values and finish their work, footsteps were heard and a young man from the engineering department rushed out from the inside: "Engineer Li, section 223, there is water seepage!"
"Ah?" Mr. Li was stunned.
"On a small scale!" the young man added.
"Let's go and take a look!" Engineer Li responded and led everyone into the depths of the tunnel.
About three minutes later, near the equipment storage area at the corner of the main tunnel, Engineer Li climbed up the ladder himself, holding a flashlight and shining it on the ceiling at the top of the tunnel.
In the gaps of the cement board, there was visible water flowing, dripping down in a streamlined manner, but the density was not high, just like the dripping water from the faucet after the water was just cut off.
Li Gong's forehead was sweating. He turned around and asked in a low voice: "Is there no testing here?"
"We've tested it before and found nothing abnormal. The underground river is not here!" the person in charge of the area replied.
"Come on, get two more ladders, have two people come up, make a gap in the board, and try to drain the water." Engineer Li has been in this business for quite some time, and he is quite experienced.
Everyone did as they were told. Two workers climbed up on a ladder and opened the water outlet a little by pressing down on the cement slabs.
"Li!"
The water flow was getting faster and stronger. Engineer Li stood at the bottom of the ladder and watched, listening to the movements on the upper ceiling, and felt that there was not much change.
After five minutes, the water flow decreased significantly and finally turned into a drip.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they saw this scene. Engineer Li had a gloomy face and pointed at the person in charge of this area and cursed: "Damn it, look at how wet the ground is? This leak has obviously been going on for more than ten hours. How did you check it last time you left your post? Don't you want to do this job anymore?"
The person in charge lowered his head and said, "I... I really didn't see it when we left, and the data is normal."
"I'll have to write a report later." After saying this, Mr. Li prepared to ask everyone to leave.
At this moment, Uncle Jiu stepped forward and asked, "Engineer Li, there is water on top, it's not a small matter, should we...!"
"Let me tell you how water is formed." Engineer Li interrupted and replied directly: "When you build a tunnel, you need to grind down the rock layer above to make its surface smooth. But after the cement slab is in place, no matter how much manual work is done, there will still be a small gap in the interlayer. The people, lights, and equipment in the tunnel will generate heat energy, which will increase the temperature of the upper layer and cause moisture. So it is normal for some of the accumulated water to flow into the gap."
Uncle Jiu frowned and did not respond.
Engineer Li said very professionally: "Did you see that? After the drainage just now, the water has all flowed away, which means that it is just a fixed amount of water stored in the gap! To make this judgment, practical experience is needed. You should remember this in the future. If there is water leakage in the tunnel, you need to use the speed and density of the water flow to distinguish whether it is natural water seepage or man-made...!"
“Bang!!”
Just as he was halfway through his words, a muffled sound suddenly came from above the tunnel.
Everyone looked up immediately upon hearing the voice.
"There are unusual movements in the rock layer!" a young member of the engineering department blurted out.
"Don't make a fuss about it!" Engineer Li was very confident, just like a fisherman who walked by the water all year round. He felt that his swimming skills were enough to deal with any emergency.
“Bang bang!”
There were two very dull noises again.
When Uncle Jiu heard the sound, he immediately said, "Something's wrong! It's an unusual movement!"
This time, Mr. Li did not argue, but took a few steps forward!
Five seconds later, a shout suddenly came from the deep mine tunnel: "There's a flood!!! The board at section 225 collapsed!! There's water, water!!"
“BOOM!!”
Suddenly, there was a sound of collapse in the narrow and dim tunnel. Engineer Li stood at the fork in the road and looked up. He saw that the tunnel, which was three or four meters high, was instantly filled with rolling water!
Uncle Jiu turned and ran: "Son, son!!"
…
Ground, monitoring department.
"Report, report!" A technician rushed into the office and shouted, "We have detected abnormal movement of the rock layer above Tunnel 03, and a large amount of water is flowing!"
"flap!"
The head of the monitoring department stood up and said, "The source of the water flow?!"
“It’s an underground river!”
"The water from the underground river can't reach Tunnel 03!"
"It may be that the heavy rain and the rising water level caused changes in the soil and rock layers underground, and the water opened up several gaps... The monitoring map here is all red...!"
“Mad!”
The head of the monitoring department turned and ran.
In the tunnel, Uncle Jiu, who was running to find his son, turned back and saw that the tunnel behind him had begun to collapse irregularly!
Disaster is coming!!