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Four Miners Confirmed Dead in South China Coal Pit Flooding

Posted on: Friday, 31 March 2006, 06:00 CST

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Guangzhou, 31 March: Four miners who were trapped in a flooded coal pit in Lianzhou sity, South China's Guangdong Province, have been confirmed dead, local government sources said.

The bodies of the four miners were found Thursday [30 March] afternoon and have been sent to the local funeral home.

The flooding took place at the coal pit at Baoshi Village in Jiupi Township of Lianzhou City, in the mountainous northwestern part of Guangdong, on Monday when five miners were digging coal in the pit.

The five were all farmers hired by the owners of the illegal coal pit. Only one managed to escape.

The coal pit, without any safety equipment for coal production or even power supply, was one of the 64 small illegal coal pits which were shut down in last year's campaign to rectify small coal mines in the locality.

But as the coal bed there is shallow and easy to cut, farmers from nearby areas often sneak in to dig coal.

Xu Weiliang and Xu Xinlian, the owners of the flooded coal pit, surrendered to police after fleeing to a local mountain for one day and one night.

Relevant departments of Lianzhou on Friday organized manpower to dismantle the infrastructure of the flooded coal pit, clean up the debris and level the ground.

Cause of the flooding is under investigation.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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