China mine disaster kills at least 104; official says GDP growth should not cost miners’ blood

Survivors recount China mine disaster; 104 dead

HEGANG, China — When gas levels suddenly spiked deep in the Xinxing coal mine, Wang Jiguo grabbed two co-workers and they ran for their lives. Minutes later, there was a huge bang, a torrent of hot air and the earth shuddered.

The death toll two days later was up to 104, with four still missing, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday. The accident Saturday was the deadliest in China’s mining industry for two years, and has highlighted how heavy demand for power-generating coal comes at a high human cost.

“Development is important, but the growth of GDP shouldn’t be achieved at the price of miners’ blood,” said provincial governor Li Zhanshu over the weekend, urging officials to better manage coal mines.

At the site of the blast, search and rescue efforts appeared to be over Monday as grieving family members gathered outside mining company offices.

At a working shaft a few hundred yards away from the blast, Xinxing miners jostled outside the opening before descending for their shift. “Of course we’re scared,” one man said, but another said: “We’ve still got to work.”

Coal is vital for China’s economy, which is targeted to grow by 8 percent his year, and its 1.3 billion people, as it is used to generate about three-quarters of the country’s electricity.

The blast at the nearly 100-year-old mine in Heilongjiang (pronounced HAY-long-jeeahng) province, near the Russian border, shows the difficulties the central government faces in trying to improve safety. It has shuttered or absorbed hundreds of smaller, private mines into state-owned operations in recent years.

The government says the closure of about 1,000 dangerous small mines last year has helped cut fatalities. Yet hundreds still die in major accidents each year, even at state-run mines, such as a blast in Shanxi province in February that killed 78 and a gas leak in Chongqing municipality in May that killed 30.

The deadliest mining accident in recent years occurred in September 2007, with 181 miners killed when shafts at two neighboring mines flooded in eastern Shandong province. Last September in northern Shanxi province, a massive landslide of mud and iron ore waste from an illegal mining operation submerged a village near Linfen, killing at least 277 people.

After Saturday’s accident, the Xinxing mine’s director, deputy director and chief engineer were fired, said an employee, who refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The pre-dawn explosion Saturday shook the residents of Hegang, an aging city in China’s Rust Belt where the streetside snow is gray with coal dust and exhaust.

Longtime residents said the mine had never suffered such an accident before.

“I had to come by and see it,” said Tang Cunha, who stood behind the police tape at the blast site and compared the destruction around the mine shaft to that of a massive earthquake. “It’s awful, it’s awful,” he said.

At the Xingshan People’s Hospital, Dr. Chen, who gave only one name, recalled the faces of the nearly 40 injured miners brought in the day before: “They were terrified.”

“It’s a very safe mine,” he said. “People never expected it.”

Of the 528 people reported working in the mine at the time of the explosion, 420 escaped, Xinhua reported. At the Hegang Mining Group General Hospital, which a spokesman said was treating 32 injured miners, a few were in the intensive care unit under police guard.

Survivors recounted their harrowing escapes. In an account reported by Xinhua, Wang Jiguo, 35, who monitored gas levels in the shaft, suddenly grabbed two other workers near him and started scrambling to the door, shouting: “Run quickly, don’t carry anything!”

At the entrance of the shaft, Wang and Fu Maofeng, 48, phoned other workers who were still underground and told them to escape, Fu told Xinhua from his bed in intensive care.

“Just after we hung up the phone, we heard a loud bang from inside the shaft. The entrance of the shaft started shaking,” Fu said. Then a wave of searing hot air slammed them to the ground, knocking them unconscious.

When he came to, Fu found himself lying in hospital, his face covered with scratches and burns on his left eye. “Our team has 10 people, and I don’t know how they are now,” Fu said.