The bodies of 11 miners killed in a coal mine gas blast on
Wednesday have been recovered by rescuers in northwest China's Gansu Province, according to the local work
safety bureau. Two miners, 39-year-old Li Wenjun, and 28-year-old
Mei Chengfang, both from Qinghai Province, were seriously burned and
are in a critical condition in hospital.
The explosion occurred at 6:20 a.m. in the No.1 pit in
Tanshanling town, Wuwei city, around 180 kilometers from the
provincial capital of Lanzhou. Thirty-eight miners were working in
four teams when the incident occurred. Those who died were in the
third team.
Eight of the dead are from Gansu and three from the nearby
Qinghai Province. Officials gave no further details about the blast
and an investigation is underway. The mine is privately-owned with
an annual production of 30,000 tons.
The blast was the 38th fatal colliery accident in Gansu in 2006
and brings to 96 the number of miners who’ve died this year in the
province. This is double the death toll from mine accidents in the
province last year, said an official with the Provincial
Administration of Coal Mine Safety.
The majority of the fatalities have been caused by gas blasts
and 61 miners died in six explosions, official sources told Xinhua.
Officials met in Wuwei city on Wednesday to discuss the issue and
ordered the closure of all 41 coal mines in the city while safety
inspections were carried out.
Four coal mine gas explosions in the provinces of Yunnan,
Heilongjiang, Shanxi and Jiangxi over the weekend left 88 miners
dead. Investigations have revealed the mines were in operation
despite government orders for production to halt.
Another seven workers were killed on Monday when a coal heap
collapsed and buried them in the southwestern province of
Guizhou.
There are frequent explosions, cave-ins and flooding incidents
in China's coal mines. These occurrences claim approximately 6,000
lives a year.
The number of mine accidents this year had two main causes, said
an official with the Work Safety Bureau of Gansu who declined to be
named. Inadequate safety supervision and the greed of many small
mine owners who sacrificed safety for profits were to blame.
Outdated equipment in many mines was also a problem.?
(Xinhua News Agency November 30, 2006)
