Eleven miners were killed this weekend in a coal and gas
explosion at a coal mine in Fuyuan, a county in eastern Yunnan Province, local sources said
yesterday.
A team of 11 miners were working underground in the Bailongshan
Coal Mine on Saturday when the tragedy occurred.
At 6:38 PM the conveyor belt was blocked by the coal and gas
explosion, killing seven miners on the spot, according to Fuyuan
County Party Committee. All bodies had been found by Sunday
afternoon.
It is not known whether the mine operated legally or
otherwise.
An investigation is ongoing into the cause of the accident.
Though coal mines across China are widely considered the most
dangerous in the world, the number of accidents and fatalities is
decreasing.
In northeast China's Jilin Province, for instance, there were 61
coal mines accidents in the first six months of the year, causing
81 deaths, a decrease of 4.7 percent and 25 percent respectively
year-on-year, according to Zhang Peilin, an official with Jilin
Provincial Bureau of Work Safety.
(China Daily August 1, 2006)