Forty-one miners died and 57 others are missing after two separate disasters in China’s beleaguered coal-mine industry, a government agency and state media said on Monday.
The bulk of the casualties came when a gas explosion ripped through a mine in China’s north-west Xinjiang region, killing at least 40 and leaving 43 unaccounted for, the State Administration for Work Safety said.
Eighty-seven people were working in the Shenlong coal mine, in Xinjiang’s Fukang city, when the blast hit the shaft at 4am local time on Monday.
Only four miners have been found alive.
”At 8am, rescuers entered the mine to find the missing miners. There are 20 rescuers in the shaft right now, but the situation is unclear. We don’t know what the situation is like down there,” a man surnamed Hu at the mine’s office said. ”There are eight to nine ambulances above ground waiting.”
The chances of the missing miners surviving appear slim.
Survival rates in gas explosions are generally low due to the short time it takes for gas inhalation to kill a person, especially with high gas density.
While the cause of the blast is under investigation, the government work safety agency has also revealed that one miner died and 14 others are feared dead in a separate coal-mine accident in southern China’s Jiangxi province.
The accident happened on July 7 when the Yongsheng coal mine near Chishan township unexpectedly flooded, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
China’s mines are considered the most deadly in the world, as safety is often sacrificed in the pursuit for the fossil fuel to drive the country’s rapid industrialisation and economic growth.
The country relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and is not expected to shift significantly to other sources for years to come.
Official figures show more than 6 000 miners died in accidents in China last year, although independent estimates say the real figure could be as high as 20 000. Many fatalities occur at illegal mines.
Reforms to the industry have often been promised in the past, but enforcing the changes have been a big stumbling block, mainly due to the profits that can be made from the country’s insatiable appetite for coal, especially in industries such as coal-fired power plants, steel and cement.
The government has in the past ordered illegal or unsafe mines to shut and punished mine owners or local officials, but China’s hunger for coal encourages owners to reopen mines illegally and officials to ignore the safety violations.
Investigations into the most deadly Chinese mine tragedy in recent years, which left 214 workers dead in February, blamed a disregard for worker safety by profit-focused operators.
Last month, China said it plans to limit the time coal miners have to spend at work underground to six hours a day in a bid to halt the trend of soaring fatalities.
Coal miners are currently made to work eight hours a day on average, with many forced to work overtime and even when they feel the conditions are unsafe.
Critics, labour rights groups and miners have said the only way for the death toll to drop is to give workers rights, such as the right to insist on more safety and collective bargaining, which China bans. — Sapa-AFP