Nine miners have been confirmed dead in a coal mine gas blast
that happened in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Saturday,
local official sources said on Monday.
Rescuers are still searching for one miner who has been missing
after the gas explosion occurred early on Saturday, said the
sources with the publicity department of Fuyuan County Committee of
the Communist Party of China. The blast occurred around 6:00 a.m.
Saturday at Shunxing Coal Mine in Fuyuan County, Qujing City in
eastern Yunnan, when 27 miners were working underground. Fourteen
of them managed to escape and 13 others were trapped
underground.
Rescuers had recovered the bodies of seven miners as of 4:30
p.m. on Saturday, and five injured miners were rushed to local
hospitals. Of the five injured, two died after failing to respond
to medical treatment, the sources said.
The coal mine is a legal coal mining venture built in 1984 and
capable of producing 90,000 tons of coal a year. Last Friday, the
county coal mine safety watchdog inspected the mine and ordered it
to suspend production to carry out rectification.
Coal mine managers, however, disobeyed the order and secretly
organized the miners to go down the shaft and work at night.
Local officials are investigating into the cause of the
accident.
(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2007)