Chinese Mine Disaster Ends With 74 Dead

BEIJING — Dozens of miners who had been trapped in a Chinese coal mine after a deadly explosion on Sunday have been rescued, authorities said Monday, according to The Associated Press. Seventy-four workers have died in the incident, making it the deadliest coal-mining accident in the country in more than a year.

The miners were working in the Tunlan Coal Mine in Shanxi Province, the coal mining heartland of China, when the blast occurred at 2:17 a.m. Sunday morning, state-run news agency Xinhua reported. The mine is in city of Gujiao and is run by the Shanxi Coking Coal Group, one of China’s largest producers of coking coal, which is used in steel production.

At the time of the explosion, 436 people were working underground. On Monday, 114 miners remained hospitalized due to carbon monoxide poisoning, with five listed in critical condition, a Shanxi government spokesman told Xinhua on condition of anonymity, citing policy.

Additional rescue efforts led to more than 300 miners being pulled from the mine, and rescue operations were stopped Monday with all the workers accounted for, The Associated Press reported. The Shanxi Coking Coal Group, which is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, produces about five million tons a year of coking coal, Xinhua reported. The mine has a reputation for safety, Xinhua said, and no accident had occurred there for five years.

Three top mining officials were removed from their posts in the wake of the fatal blast, the China Daily newspaper reported.

The death toll on Sunday was the highest in a coal mine accident since December 2007, when an explosion in the city of Linfen in Shanxi Province — often called the most polluted city in China because of the relentless haze from coal production — killed 105 miners, The Associated Press reported, citing the State Administration of Work Safety. That explosion was set off by an accumulation of gas in an unventilated tunnel.

The mining industry in China has a poor safety record. The government, which has been trying to improve safety standards by closing illegal mines, reported last month that about 3,200 people died in mining accidents last year, a 15 percent decrease from the previous year.

But the death rate still indicates that China’s mines are the most dangerous in the world.

In January, Zhao Tiechui, a senior official in charge of coal mine supervision, told Xinhua about problems regulating the industry. The government has said that 80 percent of the 16,000 mines operating in China are illegal.

“Coal mines often experience the most serious accidents because so many of them are operating illegally,” he said. “The industry also sees the most frequent covering-up of accidents.”

But mining is lucrative for those at the top. The owners of large mining companies are among China’s wealthiest people.

Provincial mining authorities promised Monday to compensate the families of the 74 workers who died in the Sunday explosion, Xinhua reported. Some $4 million will be set aside for compensation; each family was to receive at least $29,000, and children of miners killed would receive additional funds until they turned 18, the news agency said.