Rescuers have recovered seven more bodies from a north China
coal mine hit by a gas blast on Wednesday, bringing the death toll
to 26, local authorities said on Thursday.
The explosion occurred at around 11:30 AM at the Yujialing Coal
Mine located at the Yipingyuan Township, Yaodu District of Linfen
City, about 300 km southwest of Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province.
In total, 106 miners were working underground and 80 managed to
escape, including one severely injured, according to the local
rescue team headed by provincial deputy governor Jin Shanzhong.
In response to the accident, seven Communist Party of China
(CPC) and government officials were removed from posts or
"nominated" for dismissal at a meeting of the Standing Committee of
the CPC Linfen Municipal Committee on Thursday.
The CPC cannot dismiss government officials directly without the
approval of the local legislature, but the CPC can propose that the
legislative body dismiss a government official.
The officials are: Su Qingping, deputy secretary of the CPC
Yaodu District Committee and also head of the district; Fan Kejian,
deputy head of the district; Zhao Chenghe and Cui Junyu, director
and deputy director of the Yaodu District Coal Mine Bureau; Yin
Shuangfeng, secretary of the CPC Yipingyuan Township Committee; Ren
Weimin, deputy secretary of the CPC township committee and also
head of the township; and Yan Liuping, deputy head of the township,
also in charge of workplace safety.
Dai Yunzhi, 43, who suffered a broken neck and serious burns, is
receiving treatment at a local hospital where he is currently in
stable condition, according to doctor Ji Zeming. The miner's wife
said he had only been working at the site for three days.
Most of the victims are from neighboring Shaanxi Province and northwest Gansu Province, local rescue workers said.
Li Fuquan, 47, was working with five people in a shaft when the
blast occurred. "I felt a huge shock, and I couldn't hear anything
for a while after the explosion, and there was pungent smoke," he
said.
Jia Zihai, a miner in his twenties from the neighboring Shaanxi
Province, recalls hearing "a thumping noise, and the grid which
covered the ventilation outlet was blown up. Then I realized
something horrible must have happened."
Jia was above ground repairing a cart at the time of the blast,
but four of his family members were killed in the pit.
More than 100 rescuers, including local emergency workers, tried
to save the 26 trapped miners.
Rescuers said the underground shafts were over-exploited, and
had turned porous like "spiders' webs.” They said the tunnels were
stifling and poorly ventilated, and some were filled with carbon
monoxide.
Mine owner Zhou Xiaogen and senior manager Li Mingshun, along
with several others, have been arrested, local police said.
Preliminary investigations show that working conditions in the mine
were unsafe and chaotic before the accident.
Yu Youjun, governor of Shanxi, said inspectors would check all
mines in the province, and close any mine that violated safety
rules or operated without a license. He also encouraged people to
report illegal mining operations.
The coal mine company claimed its annual output capacity was
150,000 tons, but its production license, which showed an annual
capacity of 90,000 tons, had expired, according to local coal mine
safety authorities.
It was the second coal mine gas explosion in Shanxi, China's
major coal producing base, in 10 days, following an accident in
Jincheng City on March 18, which killed 21 miners.
It is also the second coal mine accident in four months to
strike Linfen, a major coal-producing city with more than 400
mines. Twenty-four miners were killed in the blast that struck
Luweitan colliery in the city on Nov. 27, 2006. The mine's
production permit and safety license had both expired before the
accident.
Coal mine accidents killed 4,746 people in 2006 and 357 in the
first two months of this year, figures from the State
Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) show.
China has set a goal of reducing the death rate to 2.1 for every
one million tons of coal produced by 2010, down from 2.81 in 2005.
The 2005 figure was 70 times the United States figure and seven
times the figures in Russia and India.
(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2007)