The managers of an illegal coal mine in China hid the bodies of 17 dead miners after a gas explosion earlier this month and underreported the accident death toll, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.
Officials at the Jiajiapu Coal Mine in Shanxi Province reported 19 miners had died in the accident on July 2, but a total of 36 were actually killed, Xinhua said.
An investigation revealed that mine officials shipped bodies to another town to cover up the death toll, it said. The unreported bodies were found in a hospital and a crematorium in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, Xinhua said.
Ulanqab is about 150km north of Ningwu County, where the blast occurred.
Mine operators are obliged by law to pay compensation to the families of miners killed on the job.
The mine was operating without official permits, Xinhua said.
Police have detained Wang Jianwu, the mine's legal officer, and Hou Yuefang, a mine contractor, Xinhua said. No charges or date of detention were given. The investigation was still underway, it said.
"Those responsible for the accident will receive due punishment," Gong Anku, director of the Shanxi Provincial Coal Mine Safety Supervision Administration, was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, a flood at a coal mine in Meizhou, Guangdong Province, left 16 miners trapped on Thursday, Xinhua reported yesterday. Rescue efforts were being hampered by large amounts of mud, the news agency said.
More than 500 rescuers were at the scene yesterday, the agency said, but they made little progress because mud was clogging their water pumps.
Preliminary investigations showed the flooding was caused by a planned explosion which broke open a cave full of water, Xinhua said.
Both the owner and the mine's safety supervisor were absent, but the colliery had a legal operating license, Xinhua quoted local officials as saying.
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