The death toll in a massive coal mine explosion in north China has risen to 166, making it the worst mining disaster in the country's recent history, local officials said yesterday.
"This morning they made the announcement to a handful of reporters at the command center," said Yan Mangxue, the party secretary for a nearby village where 14 of the dead miners are from.
"They made the conclusion because there's no chance anyone would survive. They haven't told the relatives yet. The relatives still don't know," he said.
Meanwhile, thirteen miners were killed and three others were missing after a gas blast at a coal mine in southwest China's Guizhou Province yesterday, the latest disaster to blight the industry, state media reported.
A total of 49 miners were working underground when the explosion occurred at the licensed township-run enterprise in Liupanshui.
Thirty-three people escaped, including four who were injured, the Xinhua news agency said. Rescue were still searching for the three missing miners.
A total of 293 workers were underground at the mine in Tongchuan city, Shaanxi Province, when the accident happened on Sunday. Some 127 miners escaped.
Investigators determined that a back-to-back gas blast and coal-dust explosion knocked out all ventilation systems in the pit, state media said.
"In an environment with a high density of coal gas and carbon monoxide, it is impossible that the miners still trapped underground can survive," Hou Shichang, head of the Shaanxi Province coal mine industry administration told a press conference in Tongchuan yesterday, according to Xinhua news agency.
Hundreds of miners' family members, many of whom had travelled from other parts of Shaanxi to the scene, had prepared for the worst after keeping vigil outside the shaft for the past three days.
"The relatives all realized there was no hope," retired miner Feng Zhijie said.
Local officials on Tuesday persuaded the relatives to leave the scene and took them in vans to a nearby mine, apparently to avoid media coverage and to better control them, Feng said.
Anger at the mine's poor attention to safety had spilled over into a beating incident involving a mine official, Feng said.
"Families were crying and collapsed on the ground. Journalists tried to film the scene. A mine official came out and said there should be no more interviewing. Several young men then punched the official," Feng said.
The official was not seriously hurt, he said.
Yan said local officials like himself had been asked to begin informing the families that their relatives were dead.
Xinhua said 101 bodies still remained in the mine while 65 had been retrieved.
"It could take about 10 days before all the bodies are brought up," Yan said.
Work to recover the bodies was being hampered by continuing dangerously high gas density and the risk of another explosion.
The main ventilation system resumed operation on Monday, but according to preliminary analysis, areas of the shaft were still on fire, according to Xinhua.
More than 7,000 workers are killed each year in China's coal mines, considered the world's most dangerous. China is the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not