Rescue efforts for 2 mine accidents
Source: Xinhua/Shanghai Daily |
July 3, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
RESCUERS are trying to save 40 miners who were trapped underground in two separate accidents yesterday, which also left three dead.
In the first case, 21 miners were trapped underground after a coal mine in Pingtang County in southwest China's Guizhou Province was flooded yesterday morning.
The accident occurred at about 9:30am when 29 miners were working at two shafts in the Niupeng Mine. Eight workers have already been brought back to the surface safely, said an official with the county government.
A member of the Pingtang work safety bureau staff surnamed Chen confirmed that there had been a flood yesterday at the Niupeng Mine.
Chen said rescuers scrambled to reach the miners at the mine and the cause of the flood was under investigation.
In the second accident, rescuers were digging through a caved-in coal mine in south China to search for 19 miners trapped underground, local officials said yesterday. Three bodies have been found.
The miners became trapped around yesterday noon at a coal mine located in a rural area of the city of Heshan, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, after rain-saturated earth on the surface collapsed into a shaft, said Meng Qingguan, head of the work safety bureau of Heshan.
Meng blamed days of heavy rain for the cave-in.
A 16-man rescue team started to clear the mud-stuffed mine shaft last night after work crews used pumps to reduce the level of highly explosive gas in the shaft. Xinhua reporters saw a big hole, about 30 meters in diameter and 50 meters deep, on the surface of the mine.
It is difficult to reach the miners, trapped at a depth of 390 meters, because of the huge amount of earth blocking the shaft, rescuers said.
Another 50 miners who were working underground at the time of the cave-in managed to escape.
Although casualties from mine accidents in China have been falling, they still account for 70 percent of the world total, according to a recent China Economic Weekly report, citing Chen Hong of the School of Management of the China University of Mining and Technology.
The report also revealed that more than 97 percent of coal mine accidents in China were caused by human error.
In the first case, 21 miners were trapped underground after a coal mine in Pingtang County in southwest China's Guizhou Province was flooded yesterday morning.
The accident occurred at about 9:30am when 29 miners were working at two shafts in the Niupeng Mine. Eight workers have already been brought back to the surface safely, said an official with the county government.
A member of the Pingtang work safety bureau staff surnamed Chen confirmed that there had been a flood yesterday at the Niupeng Mine.
Chen said rescuers scrambled to reach the miners at the mine and the cause of the flood was under investigation.
In the second accident, rescuers were digging through a caved-in coal mine in south China to search for 19 miners trapped underground, local officials said yesterday. Three bodies have been found.
The miners became trapped around yesterday noon at a coal mine located in a rural area of the city of Heshan, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, after rain-saturated earth on the surface collapsed into a shaft, said Meng Qingguan, head of the work safety bureau of Heshan.
Meng blamed days of heavy rain for the cave-in.
A 16-man rescue team started to clear the mud-stuffed mine shaft last night after work crews used pumps to reduce the level of highly explosive gas in the shaft. Xinhua reporters saw a big hole, about 30 meters in diameter and 50 meters deep, on the surface of the mine.
It is difficult to reach the miners, trapped at a depth of 390 meters, because of the huge amount of earth blocking the shaft, rescuers said.
Another 50 miners who were working underground at the time of the cave-in managed to escape.
Although casualties from mine accidents in China have been falling, they still account for 70 percent of the world total, according to a recent China Economic Weekly report, citing Chen Hong of the School of Management of the China University of Mining and Technology.
The report also revealed that more than 97 percent of coal mine accidents in China were caused by human error.
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