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23 February, 2009
The body count was still being tabulated early today in China’s deadliest coal-mine accident in over 14 months. But at least 74 miners were confirmed dead, following a gas explosion that occurred at the Tunlan Coal Mine early Sunday, 22 February. The mine is owned by the Shanxi Jiaomei Group.
Dozens more are still trapped and the death toll could rise to nearly 100. search and rescue efforts were called off at midday today, 23 February. The tragedy occurred at Gujiao City, Shanxi Province, at the company’s Shanxi Coking Coal Co.
Yesterday, family members of some of those trapped received mobile phone calls from miners’ deep underground, perhaps hearing their loved ones voices for the last time.
A total of 436 miners were working at the time of the explosion, and some 300 miners managed to escape. Some 114 of those had been hospitalised, and at least 21 of those faced death-threatening circumstances. The Shanxi Jiaomei Group is a private coal and petroleum company.
The disaster was China’s worst coal-mine blast since 105 miners perished on 5 December 2007 at the Xinyao coal mine, also in Shanxi Province. Four months earlier, 181 miners died inside shafts of two adjoining mines in Shandong Province when the mines flooded.
Earlier this month, on 13 February, eight Chinese miners were killed in a gas explosion inside the Zhijin mine in Zhijin County, Guizhou Province, which is in the China’s southwest region. Those victims were identified as migrant workers from nearby Chongquing. Twenty-five miners managed to escape that explosion.