Chinese rescuers frantically pumped water from flooded mine shafts on Monday with little hope that about 180 miners trapped for three days might be alive and as officials revealed they knew of the danger.
The disaster in the eastern coastal province of Shandong is just the latest to strike China’s coal industry, the world’s deadliest, with more than 2 000 miners killed in accidents over the first seven months of the year.
Underscoring China’s poor industrial safety record, 14 people were killed in a spill of molten aluminium on Sunday night at a foundry in the same province.
The miners have been trapped since Friday when a burst river dyke sent water rushing into the mine shafts. It was unclear if the miners would have drowned immediately or might be trapped on higher ground.
”The number one priority is to pump as much as water as possible from the mine shaft,” Bu Changseng, a worker-safety expert drafted in by the government, told reporters at the site.
But only a day before the disaster, province safety officials meeting in Xintai discussed the threat of floods in coal mines and singled out the area where Friday’s disaster took place, showing that officials knew of seasonal risks from heavy rains.
”Especially in areas along rivers and lakes and low-lying areas where water easily accumulates and leaks, we must set preventative measures,” the report on the website of Shandong’s coal-mine safety bureau cited deputy chief Zhang Xuechang as saying in Xintai.
The meeting included 18 mines that the report said ”were seriously threatened by water dangers”, especially from underground sources that could burst into shafts.
Zhang ordered mines to buy flood-prevention equipment — by next year’s rainy season.
By late on Sunday, the water level had dropped several metres, state media reported, drilling equipment from a nearby oil field was being installed to help with the rescue effort and water pumps from neighbouring provinces sent to the site.
But even once all the pumps were in operation they would be able to pump only about 5 000 cubic metres of water per hour, Bu said. With 12-million cubic metres of water filling the massive mine, that could mean months before the shaft was cleared.
Troops, armed police and miners managed to block the levee breach on the Wenhe River, swollen from torrential rains, and hundreds of miners in their blue uniforms were at work building a second levee.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao also signalled high-level attention with a weekend notice on the government’s website demanding that rescuers ”promptly mobilise equipment and personnel and adopt all necessary measures to rescue the trapped miners”.
‘Safety first’
China relies on coal to fuel its economic boom and with domestic coal prices at record levels, some operators boost production beyond safe limits, despite government efforts to enforce safety standards.
Slogans peppered around the mine complex proclaimed ”Safety first, production second” in a sad reminder of the chasm between official proclamations and the reality of the industry.
Because of their frequency, mine accidents in China do not garner the same media coverage as they do in the United States, where efforts to rescue six trapped miners in Utah have been front-page news for nearly two weeks.
In a separate accident in Shandong, 14 people were killed and 59 injured when molten aluminium burst from its container, Xinhua reported.
The accident at the foundry affiliated to the Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group in Shandong’s Zouping country, blew the roof off of the workshop, smashed window panes and cracked walls, the report said.
Officials were investigating the cause of the explosion, which called to mind an horrific accident in April in which more than 25 tonnes of molten steel engulfed a room where workers were changing shift, killing at least 32. — Reuters