China coal mine blast kills 51, traps over 100

BEIJING (Reuters) – An explosion in a coal mine in China’s
northeastern province of Heilongjiang has killed 51 miners and
trapped more than 100 underground, state media said on Monday.

The blast was reported on Sunday at Dongfeng Coal Mine, run
by a branch of the Heilongjiang Longmei Mining (Group) Co.
Ltd., the Xinhua news agency quoted the provincial coal mine
safety administration as saying.

Some 70 miners have been rescued, but 221 were working
underground at the time of the blast, Xinhua said. A coal-dust
explosion had knocked out all ventilation systems in the pit,
investigators said. The main system resumed operation on
Monday.

The mine explosion is the latest disaster to strike
Heilongjiang, whose capital city, Harbin, was held hostage for
five days by a toxic spill coursing through the river that
provides its water supply, forcing a shut-down of tap water.

The slick, caused by an explosion at a chemical plant in
nearby Jilin province about two weeks ago, passed through the
Songhua River and out of Harbin at the weekend. Taps were
turned back on Sunday.

China’s mining industry is the biggest and the deadliest in
the world. Accidents killed more than 2,700 miners in the first
half of the year.

The country has launched safety campaigns to clean up and
shut down illegal mines in the hope that consolidating China’s
thousands of tiny and primitive operations will improve safety.

But booming energy demand and high coal prices has driven
some mine owners to ignore regulations and Sunday’s blast, at a
state-owned mine, shows that larger players are not immune from
disasters.

Longmei Group is a conglomerate of four state-owned major
coal businesses in the northeastern province, with a registered
capital of 13 billion yuan.

China’s worst coal mine accident this year killed 214
people at a state-run mine in the northeastern province of
Liaoning.

Accidents and disasters caused more than 1 million
casualties annually in China and 650 billion yuan in economic
losses each year — or 6 percent of GDP, Xinhua said in a
separate report, citing Wang Jikun, a senior official with the
Ministry of Public Security.