Henan Province
Eighteen miners were confirmed dead today after a gas explosion at the Sundian Coal Mine, Ruzhou City, Henan province on 22 November. Five others are still missing.
The blast occurred at 5pm as 57 miners were working underground. The cause of the explosion is under investigation. Police were questioning five people in charge of safety and maintenance at the privately-owned mine, Xinhua said. According to another report the mine owner is now missing and is believed to have fled.
Jiangxi Province
A blast occurred at 11:45 a.m on 1 November in the Jianxin Coal Mine in Jiangxi province. Nine miners were killed and a further seven injured two of them seriously.
It is not known how any people were in the mine at the time of the accident. According to reports, the Fengcheng Coal Mine Bureau, which oversees the state-run Jianxin mine, did not have an exact figure of how many people were underground.
Rescuers had reportedly worked through the day in shifts of 50 or 60, extricating bodies from underground. Thick deposits of carbon monoxide released by the explosion hampered initial rescue efforts.
The coal mine (state owned) with an annual production capacity of 600,000 tons has been ordered to stop production while Jiangxi provincial government issued an emergency notice demanding the prevention of major accidents involving heavy losses in the province, especially in coal mines, fireworks factories, public venues and transport
Authorities said they had shut down more than 15,400 small mines across the country due to hazards. However, another 23,500 similar operations are still running, Xinhua reported, citing a State Administration of Production Safety official.
According to reports an independent fact-finding team was formed to look into the accident. The group held their first meeting in the province's Jianxin Coal Mine, where the tragedy occurred, and they would carry on further investigations and take two or three months to finish a final report on the cause of the accident, to be submitted to the State Council.
The investigation team reportedly consists of Liang Jiakun, deputy director of State Administration of Coal Mine Safety Supervision, and Ling Chengxing, vice governor of Jiangxi Province and other officials and work safety experts from the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, Ministry of Supervision and the province.
Jilin Province
At least four miners were killed and 11 were missing after a gas explosion at 3:30 a.m. 12 November, at the Wangou Coal Mine in Tonghua city of Jilin province while 24 miners were working in the No. 2 shaft. Nine miners escaped.
Rescue workers have reportedly encountered continuous cave-ins in the tunnel which have hampered their endeavor to reach the trapped miners. The tunnel was severely damaged by the gas explosion, which had caused nine cave-ins as of 8 p.m. In addition, the shaft was full of poisonous gases resulting from the explosion, such as carbon monoxide, endangering rescuers.
There was a slim chance for the trapped miners to survive due to the long time and the lack of oxygen, experts noted.
The mine, which had gone bankrupt, was reportedly ordered to stop production on 4 June but the mine owners resumed production on their own.
Shaanxi Province
Huangling County
Five miners died and 24 others were injured in an accident at the Huajiazhuang Coal Mine at around 1pm on 11 November in Huangling County, Shaanxi Province when 62 miners were working underground. Four miners died at the scene and one died in hospital, while 33 miners escaped uninjured. Ten of the injured were in hospital with burns and six were described as in critical condition
The initial investigation suggests that the accident was possibly caused by burning gas or an explosion. The provincial government and governments of Yan'an City and Huangling County have reportedly set up a working group to find the cause.
Huangling County has 44 coal mines, three of which are run by the county government and the others are private mines. Eight mines have been ordered to close.
Fugu County
Twelve workers were killed late on 13 November at a stone quarry in Fugu county, Shaanxi province, when their hut was buried by a landslide. 11 others were dug out alive, two were seriously hurt and the others lightly injured.
Guizhou Province
Sand slides on 11 November at an illegal mine in Xingren county, Guizhou province, have killed 12 people, including villagers who tried to rescue the buried miner. Five others rescued.
According to reports, the sand collapsed when a villager set off gunpowder. The villager was immediately buried. Fellow villagers rushed to the site, where two ensuing sand slides buried 15 of them.
A government rescue team pulled six survivors from the sand, but one later died in hospital.
October 2003
Hubei province
Four miners were killed in a coal mine cave-in in Daye City, Hubei Province on 17 October 2003. The accident occurred about 11:00 a.m. Friday in Tongzi Mine, a state-owned mine in the city. A part of the wood support in the mine collapsed, causing cave-in of the tunnel wall. Twenty miners were working in the mine at that time.
About one hour later, four people were found dead while the others were rescued. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Henan province
Sixteen trapped miners in a flooded coal mine in Dengfeng City, central China's Henan Province, were confirmed dead on 17 October as rescuers continue to search for the last missing one.
Previous reports said 18 miners were trapped underground when the coal mine was flooded on 9 October 2003. However, rescuers said the number was 17, because one had managed to escape.
According to reports, the preliminary investigation showed the lax awareness of safety among the mine's managers. Rescue operations were repeatedly hampered by dense gas, a pump breakdown and water leakage inside the flooded shaft.
The flooded Changda Coal Mine began operating in 1997 and was unlicensed.
It was the second coal mine accident in three months in Dengfeng. The first occurred at the Dengfeng Coal Mine in Baiping Township on 13 July, killing 21 workers.