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China coal mine blast kills 51, traps over 100

Posted on: Monday, 28 November 2005, 00:43 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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