Rescue workers recovered more bodies on Friday from a coal shaft where at least 66 miners died and 82 were missing with little hope of survival after a gas explosion in central China’s Henan province on Wednesday, state media reported.
News of the mounting death toll came as officials said 29 miners were trapped by floods on Wednesday at another coal mine in neighbouring Hebei province.
Water flooded an underground shaft as 63 people were working at the privately run Desheng mine in Wu’an city, Hebei province, a city safety official said by telephone. Twenty-four miners escaped and 10 others were rescued, leaving 29 missing.
The mine owner reported only six people missing, the official Xinhua news agency said. The agency said police detained nine ”responsible people” and froze the mine’s bank account, but it did not say if the owner was one of those detained.
Safety officials on Thursday said no survivors were likely to be found among the 148 miners who were trapped underground at the state-owned Daping mine in Henan’s Xinmi city.
The government said the explosion was the worst accident in China this year.
A total of 446 miners were working underground when gas exploded late on Wednesday evening. At least 298 miners survived, with 21 injured treated at local hospitals, where four were in serious condition.
The blast could be heard several kilometres away and pushed hot, poisonous fumes up to 1,5km through the shaft, the Beijing News said on Friday.
Earlier reports said at least 55 miners died from suffocation rather than external injuries.
A sudden gas build-up was recorded just before the explosion, with the density rising from 1,49% to 40% in just more than two minutes, the agency said.
The mine, opened in 1986, employs 4 100 people and has an annual production capacity of 1,3-million tonnes of coal.
More than 8 000 workers die annually in Chinese mines. Many accidents at small or illegal mines are not even reported. — Sapa-DPA