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5 November, 2007
Some ten coal mine disasters in China were recorded over the past month, leaving 100 dead. And last week, the China State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) issued an alert stating that the number of coal mine accidents might increase in the coming months, as production accelerates to meet winter demand.
October was another deadly month in China’s coal mines, where an estimated 20,000 workers die each year from industrial accidents, methane explosions, floods, and illegal mining.
The latest reported tragedy occurred on Friday, 2 November, when a shaft tunnel collapsed, killing nine miners. This occurred at the licensed Shanxi Jinle Coal Mine in Xinzhou city, in China’s northern Shanxi province. A few days earlier, on 28 October, in Jiangxi provice at the Lingzian colliery, at a township-owned mine, floods poured into mine shafts, taking the lives of nine miners. One worker was rescued, but only after three days.
On 26 October, nine perished in northwest Shanxi province, also because of flooding. This occurred at the Yaotou coal mine near Weinan City. The mine is a registered private mine, with annual output of 60,000 tonnes.
A day earlier, on 25 October, a small, illegal mine was rocked by an underground explosion, killing 11. That happened at the Yuejin coal mine, Chongqing, southwest China. The board chairman, local manager, and two other senior managers were arrested a few days after the explosion.
On 22 October, a newly dug transport tunnel at the Yinying coal mine in Taiyuan, northern China, collapsed, killing 13 people living in row houses above the mine. Some of the dead were miners and family members. The incident occurred in the middle of the night and no one was working the mine at the time.
Also on 22 October, three Chinese miners died and seven were injured following an explosion inside a township-run mine at Puqian in Hengfeng county, northeastern Jiangxi province. The miners were 285 metres underground performing maintenance work. On 13 October, 19 miners were buried alive after a gas explosion caused a massive coal slide that came rumbling down a 30-metre-wide tunnel. This also occurred in Jiangxi province. Some 261 miners managed to escape the deadly accident at the Jianxin colliery.
Jianzin also was the mine that claimed the lives of 49 miners in 2003 from a gas explosion, and in August 2006, five were killed from a blast.
On 7 October, eight died, including three rescue workers, following flooding of the Chankeng mine in Fujian province. And a day earlier, on 6 October, ten miners died from a methane explosion at the Shunxing mine in eastern Yunnan province. The mine was legal but a week prior to the blast, a county mine safety inspector had ordered Shunzing to suspend production in order that the mine’s shafts undergo repairs.
Last year, China saw a 2.04 death rate for every one million tonnes of coal mined. Total Chinese coal production is expected to top 2.5 billion tonnes this year, with annual production growth this year over last year expected to be 11.5%. SAWS, on 1 November, announced it was soliciting public submissions on a draft plan regarding 604 safety production standards to go into effect between 2007 and 2010. The proposed standards are in 10 work sectors, including coal mines, non-coal mining, and chemicals and fireworks production.