China mine blast kills 56, final death toll expected to reach 148
Agence France-Presse
21 October 2004
An underground gas explosion ripped through a mine in central China killing at least 56 workers and leaving nearly 100 missing in one of the worst mining disasters in recent memory, officials said Thursday.
The shafts of the Daping coal mine near Xinmi in Henan province were packed with nearly 450 workers when disaster struck Wednesday just as two shifts were changing over, mine officials said.
Battling toxic gases, over 100 rescuers have been sent down the mine to search for survivors. As of early Thursday, 56 bodies had been recovered and 92 miners were listed as missing and feared dead.
The accident is yet another blow to China's beleaguered coal mining industry. China is the biggest consumer and producer of coal, but appalling safety standards contribute to thousands of mining deaths each year.
The authorities held out little hope of finding survivors.
"From our experience, with 148 people missing due to a gas explosion in a coal mine, the chances of survival are slim," Sun Huashan, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, told a briefing in Beijing.
The Henan Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau said it did everything in its power to rescue people alive, but it, too, was pessimistic.
"The situation is very tough in the mine, the gas is very dense, and in such conditions, it's hard to survive," said an official at the bureau, surnamed Cao.
A member of staff at the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group, which runs the mine, said the blast had happened at one of the pit's busiest times and 446 miners were listed as being underground.
"We've got two shifts, one that works from two in the afternoon until midnight, and one that begins at ten in the evening and goes home at eight the morning after," said the member of staff, who gave her surname as Sun.
The Work Safety Administration said on its website that 298 people had escaped from the coal mine, 18 of them with injuries.
"We're investigating the cause of the blast," said Song Guangtai, deputy director of the Henan bureau of coal mine safety supervision, speaking to AFP from the blast site.
According to official figures over 7,000 workers die each year in China's coal mines, but Hong Kong-based human rights group China Labor Bulletin puts the annual number of deaths in the industry at around 20,000.
One of the main reasons for the poor safety record is that many small and private mines operate outside official control, with local officials sometimes being paid bribes to turn a blind eye to lax safety procedures.
One of the most serious known accidents in recent years happened in September 2000 at a coalmine in southern Guizhou province, where a gas explosion claimed the lives of 162 people.
The area around Xinmi city has been hit by several mine disasters.
In late September, seven people died in a gas explosion at a coal mine near Xinmi, while in April, 12 people were reported missing in a flooding of another Xinmi mine, also apparently run by the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group.
China's economy is growing at breakneck pace and has created a voracious appetite for more energy sources.
Sun Huashan, the work safety administration deputy head, said the accident showed that "there are still a lot of insufficiencies in the safe production in mines ... especially under the current heavy demand for coal."
In the first nine months of this year alone, 4,153 people died in 2,796 fatal mine accidents in China, according to the State Bureau for Work Safety.