Urine Good Health

Brothers Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou told the Beijing News they became so hungry it was impossible even to crawl. The men were working at an illegal mine on the outskirts of Beijing when they were trapped by a rock fall on 18 August.

Rescue efforts were halted after two days, with officials and the families of both men believing they were dead. But the pair managed to dig their way out of the pit using just their hands, after spending more than five days under ground.

He described how they filled two water bottles with urine, saying: "You can only take small sips, and when you've finished, you just want to cry."

“At the end, we were so hungry we ate coal and thought it tasted delicious," Meng Xianchen said. Xianyou said he found coal "quite fragrant" at first, but later it became "bitter and unsmooth".

They had a "total breakdown" and eventually began to use humour to help them get through the ordeal.

"I told my brother 'your wife is going to have to marry someone else'", Meng Xianyou told the newspaper.

His brother replied: "I laughed too. I said my wife could find a rich man in Shenyang.

"But then I thought, I have two children and my wife is ugly, so it would be hard for her to remarry."