Flood in China Coal Mine Traps 44 Miners
Posted on: Sunday, 21 May 2006, 00:04 CDT
BEIJING - An underground flood in a coal mine in northern China trapped 44 miners, the government said Sunday, blaming local mine managers for underplaying the scope of the accident.
The flood occurred Thursday night but mine managers said at the time that only five miners were missing, the official Xinhua News Agency reporting, citing rescue officials.
"In this sense, the actual situation of the accident was covered up," Xinhua said, citing Gong Anku, head of the provincial industrial safety bureau.
Nine mine managers have been detained, and their boss is in hiding, Xinhua said.
A total of 145 miners were working in the Xinjing Coal Mine in Shaanxi province's Zuoyun County at the time of the accident, and 101 escaped, Xinhua said.
China's coal mines are the world's deadliest, with about 6,000 deaths every year in fires, floods and explosions, often blamed on indifference to safety rules and lack of required equipment.
A series of accidents in the United States has killed 31 coal miners so far this year, including five who died in an underground explosion Saturday in eastern Kentucky and 12 who died in January in West Virginia's Sago mine.
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
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