The death toll in a colliery blast in northwest China's Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region rose to 81 as at 11:00 AM Wednesday.
Two miners are still missing, government officials said.
By?Wednesday, rescuers had recovered the bodies of 81
miners. They are searching for?the remaining two.
The incident took place at the Shenlong Mine in Fukang County,
62 km away from the regional capital of Urumqi, early on Monday
morning.
Only four out of the 87 people working in the coal mine at the
time escaped.
China's work safety watchdog has blamed the blast on the
exploitation of loopholes including overproduction, lax work safety
license checks, and poor management.
Li Yizhong, director of the State Administration for Work
Safety, said that overproduction had led to an extremely high gas
density in the colliery shaft, and the management staff failed to
take effective safety precautions, even after finding out about the
problem.
The colliery produced some 180,000 tons of coal in the first
half of this year, far exceeding its annual capacity of 30,000
tons.
Actually, gas densities had reached about?3 percent, way
over the safety mark of?1 percent, three or four hours before
the accident took place, Li explained.
If the colliery management had taken effective measures to
evacuate miners and cut underground electricity supplies
immediately after having discovered the gas density problem, the
incident could have been prevented.
Li also criticized the colliery management for sending an
exceedingly large number of miners underground in order to increase
production.
It is likely that families of workers killed in the blast will
receive at least 200,000 yuan (US$24,300) compensation each, China
Central Television reported yesterday.
As a preliminary step in the investigation, authorities have
placed travel restrictions on the owner and others in charge of the
mine, according to the administration's website.
Coal is always in short supply as the country relies on it for
two-thirds of its energy needs, a situation that is not expected to
change significantly for years to come.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily July 13,
2005)