Explosion in coal mine: 31 killed and 78 trapped underground
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - At least 31 dead caused by an explosion in a coal mine in Xinxing, in Heilongjiang province on the border between China and Russia.
The death toll seems destined to rise. The blast, caused by a gas leak, occurred November 21 at 2:30 local time. At the time there were 528 employees working in the mine and 78 of them are still trapped in the tunnels at 5 hundred meters below ground.
The 60 members of the rescue team are working to extract survivors from the mine owned by the state Heilongjiang Longmei Mining Holding Group. Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang has travelled to the scene to express the closeness of the Beijing government.
The explosion in the mine of Xinxing is the latest in a series to be registered this year. Lack of compliance with safety standards and the frenzied pace of extraction are the cause of the accidents that occur regularly in various mines across the country.
The authorities claim to have introduced more stringent controls and already in 2008 have reduced by 15% the number of accidents. The Beijing government has closed smaller fields and has attempted to regulate the mining industry to reduce the tragedies of the mines. The ever increasing demand for coal and fuel for the Chinese industry combined with the inaction of the labour unions (see AsiaNews, 10/09/2009, " Hunan: 5,000 miners on strike for weeks amid trade unions’ indifference") render vain all attempts to regulate mine safety. As a rough estimate, in 2009 at least 3 thousand miners were killed in incidents in different mines due to landslides, floods and explosions.
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