China, where fatal mine accidents are an almost daily event, has ordered coal pit managers to accompany miners underground on every shift in a new bid to improve safety, state media said yesterday.
Their job would be to discover any potential dangers before they lead to an accident, the Beijing News said a day after a gas explosion killed 15 coal miners in Shanxi Province.
More than 2,700 Chinese coal miners lost their lives in the first half of this year in the world's deadliest coal industry as many pits rushed to feed the world's seventh-largest economy with little regard to safety.
Coal accounts for about three-quarters of China's energy. The industry has become so profitable as the economy booms that many government officials have bought stakes in coal mines.
"It must be guaranteed that at least one member of the management is on the spot on every shift and they should come and go with workers together," the Beijing News said, quoting a circular by the national work safety watchdog.
Xinhua news agency said last week that 4,578 officials had reported investment in coal mines, totalling 653 million yuan (US$81 million), after the state declared a crackdown on a practice which some say breeds collusion between management and local government.
Cave-ins at three illegal gypsum mines in north China have killed at least 22 people, including 10 who lived on top of the shafts and were crushed when their homes collapsed on them, officials said yesterday.
Up to 18 more miners were still unaccounted for at the accident site in Xingtai county of Hebei Province. Rescuers working frantically through tonnes of mud and stone were encouraged by faint signs of life.
"We can hear their voices," Wang Fengqi, an official with the Work Safety Bureau of Xingtai city, said. "They may survive."
None of the three mines had obtained safety certificates from the authorities, and all had been operating despite an order to cease work for the time being, the national work safety administration said in a statement.
The accident happened early Sunday evening when the Kangli gypsum mine collapsed, sending shock waves to two adjacent gypsum mines, where the shafts also caved in, according to the administration.
Twelve bodies had been extracted from the mines as of yesterday afternoon, along with 16 survivors. Eighteen miners were still trapped inside the mines, and it was uncertain how many of them were still alive, it said.
More than 10 buildings erected immediately on top of the mines collapsed in the accident, crushing 10 of their inhabitants to death, according to the statement.
"The numbers of dead and missing is only preliminary," the state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing an unnamed official. "They could rise as the rescue work progresses."
State media did not provide a likely cause of the accident, and officials said they did not have any idea yet what triggered the collapse.
"We are busy trying to rescue the survivors," said Wang.
The worst accident this year was a mine explosion in February in Liaoning Province, killing 212 miners. A pit flood killed 123 workers in Guangdong in August.
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