Spate of China Coal Mine Accidents Occur in Mid-July

Mid-July proved to another deadly period in the coal mines of China. In total, over 100 miners lost their lives in six separate and recorded tragedies occurring over in just over a week’s time.

 The largest number of industrial deaths occurred in north China’s Shanxi Province, at the Linjiazhuang Coal Mine in Lingshi county. A coal dust explosion on 15 July killed 57 miners, with only six miners managing to escape. Also on 15 July, a flash flood in the central Chinese province of Hunan killed 14 workers at the Shenjiawan Coal Mine. Only one of those workers was underground at the time, but the flooding also trapped rescue workers.

Another mine flood in yet another province on 15 July took the lives of 18 miners. This occurred at the village-run Pianpoyuan Coal Mine in southwest China’s Guizhou province, near the town of Anshun. On 16 July, an explosion at the Lilan Coal Mine in Junlian county, province of Sichuan province, claimed the lives of five miners. Thirty-four coalminers managed to escape.

Eight miners were feared drowned inside a mine shaft that flooded on 10 July. This occurred in Shanxi province at the Dongchuan Coal Mine in Luliang City. Ten miners escaped, but rescue efforts were hampered by the necessity to pump some 2,000 cubic metres of water from mine shafts. On 8 July, a colliery in neighbouring Liulin county of Shanxi province, saw six miners trapped and presumed dead by flooding.