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Blast in C. China illegal mine kills 35

By Chen Jia in Beijing and Liu Yuefeng in Pingdingshan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-09 07:21

An explosion at an illegal coal mine killed 35 miners and left another 44 men trapped in central China's Henan province Tuesday.

"The mine owner and two managers have been detained by local police, and five officials have been dismissed, including three work safety supervisors," Dong Yuxi, the local media official, told China Daily Tuesday.

Local authorities have frozen the colliery's bank account, according to the local media office.

Rescuers take an elevator down into a coal mine Tuesday looking for missing miners in Pingdingshan, Henan province. An explosion at the illegal mine killed 35 miners and left another 44 trapped, government officials said. [Zhao Peng/China Daily]

"The men are trapped about 300 meters underground, and at least 60 rescuers are taking turns going down into the pit to search for victims," said Xu Yuan, the chief of the media office of local government.

Officials have found out the identities of the 35 dead, and have notified their families, he said.

The deadly gas blast took place around 1 am Tuesday in the Xinhua No 4 pit in Xinhua district of Pingdingshan city, said a spokesman with the Henan provincial bureau of work safety.

A total of 93 people were working in the pit when the accident happened, 14 of whom managed to escape.

"My father is still lying in intensive care. I could hardly recognize him at first, his face was so seriously burnt," said Li Zhansheng, a 22-year-old local farmer who had come to the mining bureau general hospital in Pingdingshan Tuesday.

"My cousin and a neighbor are still trapped underground we can't sleep until we know if they're OK," he told China Daily.

His 46-year-old father had worked on the mine for three years and was the only breadwinner for this rural family.

"We would not have let them continue working for the mine if we knew it was illegal," he said.

The accident has grabbed the attention of the country's top leadership, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang arrived in Pingdingshan with a government delegation at 1:10 pm Tuesday.

Luo Lin, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, has also led a team to Pingdingshan to oversee rescue work and investigate the accident.

Ambulances, police wagons and engineering vehicles packed the colliery's compound Tuesday morning.

"The first group of rescuers arrived at 2 am and began to restore the underground ventilation system," said Zhang Jufeng, an official in charge of the city's coal mine industry bureau. By 11 am ventilation in most shafts had been restored, he said.

A preliminary investigation showed illegal mining was to blame for the accident.

The township-run colliery, which produces 150,000 tons of coal annually, was undergoing an overhaul and had not been allowed to resume production by the city government, said a spokesman with the Pingdingshan city committee of the Communist Party of China.

The Henan provincial government has ordered an immediate safety overhaul of all coal mines. Governments at city and county levels are to be held responsible for safety at all pits in their jurisdictions, said a circular issued by the province's government on Tuesday.

The city government of Pingdingshan had ordered all of the city's 157 coal mines to suspend production for safety overhauls.

Coal mine disasters claimed almost 1,700 lives in Henan in the first eight months of this year, down 22 percent from the same period last year, the provincial work safety bureau said.

China is encouraging mergers and acquisitions between domestic coal mine enterprises in a bid to upgrade production capability and improve technology.

Since 2005, China has closed more than 12,000 small coal mines whose annual output was below 300,000 tons.

Xinhua contributed to the story