Beijing: At least seven miners who were trapped since Monday in an underground warehouse of a coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province were confirmed dead, according to local authorities on Friday. The coal pile in the warehouse collapsed at midnight on Monday when miners were repairing a coal feeder.
Gao Naichun said that seven people were buried when the warehouse collapsed earlier this week. The last body was retrieved on Friday morning, marking the end of the rescue mission at the coal mine of the Taoyuan Xinlong coal industrial corporation in Zhongyang County, according to the county government.
The collapsed coal broke the water pipes under the warehouse and led to water outbursts, which hampered the rescue efforts, Gao said. Further investigation is underway, according to reports by state-controlled media.
Coal mine accidents in China which has a high energy demand around the year are common causing a large number of casualties to the miners as they mostly operate in poor security conditions.
In January, at least ten people were killed after an accident in a coal mine in central China's Henan Province, local authorities said. The accident, a likely coal and gas explosion described as an "outburst, happened in a coal mine of the Pingdingshan Tianan Coal Mining Co., Ltd.
Last October, at least 11 people were killed when an explosion took place in a coal mine in northern China, authorities said. The blast occurred on the outskirts of the historic city of Yan'an in the mountainous Shaanxi province, where mining has long been a key driver of the local economy.
China's recent surge of deadly construction incidents are a result of poor safety training and regulation, official corruption and corporate profit-seeking. Despite the high-profile incidents, the overall number of industrial accidents fell by 27 per cent in 2022, when much of China's economy was shut down under its “zero COVID” policy, the Ministry of Emergency Management reported. The number of deaths fell by 23.6 per cent, the ministry said.
(with inputs from agencies)
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