The death toll in a Chinese coal mine explosion rose to 164 yesterday with seven missing, but rescuers were still unsure how many workers were underground during the accident, highlighting the disorganized state of the country's disaster-plagued industry.
Rescuers were still combing the debris at the Dongfeng Coal Mine in northeast Heilongjiang Province for more bodies and at least seven people were still missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Hope was fading fast for their survival, it said.
Workers who had been rescued just a day after the explosion told of breathing through wet towels and trying not to pass out for 17 hours in the smoke-filled pit, said one account.
Meanwhile, two mine officials had been detained for dereliction of duty, the China Daily said, but did not give any details.
One of them, Ma Jinguang, the head of Dongfeng, had been declared a role model in mine management 10 days before the Nov. 27 accident, the newspaper said.
The other was Chen Zhiqiang, the local communist party secretary, it said. The mine's license was suspended yesterday, Xinhua reported.
Zhang Chengxiang, the director of the provincial work safety bureau, was quoted as saying that the mine had "serious problems" in its management.
A man who answered the telephone at the Dongfeng mine refused to give any details on the detentions or the number of missing or dead miners.
On Wednesday, just hours after state television reported that only one miner was unaccounted for, the death toll jumped to 161 from the 150 reported earlier in the day when rescuers pulled yet more bodies from the pit.
Officials initially put the number of miners working underground to 221 when the blast occurred based on how many miners' lamps were handed out.
But work safety officials now say it's inaccurate because some miners had registered for work but did not go down the shaft, Xinhua said.
The China Daily said yesterday that at least 20 more miners were unaccounted for, although numbers have varied since the accident.
China's mines are the deadliest in the world, with fires, floods, cave-ins and other disasters reported almost daily.
The government has unveiled one initiative after another to try to stem the carnage, vowing to step up safety inspections and punish mine owners who put profits over lives.
Many of the mine disasters are blamed on managers who ignore safety rules or fail to install required ventilation or fire control equipment, often in collusion with local officials. The issue is further complicated by the country's soaring demands for power to drive its booming economy.
Mine accidents in China killed 6,027 people last year, according to government figures _ a rate of 16 deaths each day.
Authorities say they have shut down more than 12,000 coal mines this year for inspections.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS