MORE than 200 miners have been killed in China’s worst mining disaster since the 1949 communist revolution. In addition to the 203 known to have died in a gas explosion on Monday, 28 were injured and a dozen others are missing.
All were victims of a hunger for energy that has made the Chinese coalmining industry the world’s deadliest. Last year more than 6,000 miners died in floods, explosions and fires as mine owners cut corners to meet the insatiable demand of China’s booming economy.
Its collieries accounted for 80 per cent of the world’s coalmining-related deaths last year.
A Chinese miner is 100 times more likely to die in a workplace accident than is his American counterpart.
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The explosion on Monday, at the Sunjiawan mine in Liaoning province, in northeast China, happened 242m (794ft) below ground. Some survivors reported feeling an earth tremor shortly before the blast.
Such is the demand for coal that 230 miners were working at Sunjiawan, even though much of China was on holiday for the lunar new year.
The cause of the accident remains unknown and an investigation is pending. The State Administration of Work Safety told state television that it would carry out a nationwide check on high-gas coalmines.
Leaders in Beijing demanded that local officials “spare no effort to rescue those stranded in the mine”, and they called for strict measures to prevent further disasters.
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Mining accidents are generally blamed on negligence, poor safety equipment or bad ventilation. Underground explosions are blamed on a lack of ventilation equipment to clear gas that seeps from the coal bed. Illegal mines are routinely shut down in sweeps after big accidents, but many reopen after the inspectors leave.
The Government has made efforts to improve safety and accountability, budgeting hundreds of millions of pounds since 2000 to improve ventilation in mines and reduce other safety hazards.
Six people were recently sentenced to up to six years in prison over China’s worst industrial accident, a gas leak that killed 243 people in Chongqing municipality in December 2003. But China Labor Watch, a New York-based rights group, said yesterday that Beijing should allow independent, non-governmental organisations to monitor mine safety. Some rights groups believe that as many as 20,000 workers die in China’s mines each year.
CHINA’S MINING DISASTERS