By 9:00 AM today, local rescue headquarters said they had confirmed 14 more dead and rescued another 7 after the coal mine blast in Hancheng City, Shaanxi Province. Four remain missing, and since the accident one body had already been found and 3 others rescued.
Wang Shuhe, deputy director of the state coal mine safety supervision bureau, arrived on the scene on Friday night to assist the local government in investigations and organizing rescue efforts.
The explosion took place at about 9:15 PM on Thursday in the Shangyukou Colliery, a private coal mine, near Xihancun Village. A 50-member rescue team was organized to take turns going down to search for those trapped underground.
Sources in Anhui Province's capital Hefei said on Friday that an explosion at a fireworks factory the day before killed five women aged 30 to 60 on the spot and seriously wounded two others.
The blast, at around 4:00 PM, toppled three workshops and those injured, including scores with minor injuries, were rushed to a hospital in Sanhe Township of Feixi County.
Zhang, the factory director, said the blast might have resulted from the action of friction on gunpowder. The factory was located in Baojing Village, Hangfu Town in Shucheng County.
Eighty-four workers were hospitalized after they ate contaminated food at a construction site in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, a health official said Friday.
By press time, 66 workers were in stable condition and 18 others still under medical observation.
Yang Zhi, head of the Wuchang District Health Bureau, said they all worked at the Century Garden construction site in Wuchang District. The project manager held a dinner for 293 workers on Wednesday for the weeklong Labor Day holiday which starts on May 1.
Some workers reported vomiting and diarrhea early on Thursday morning and 84 were sent to a local hospital later that day.
Yang said the local diseases control center had ruled out the possibility of the food being contaminated by toxic chemicals and concluded they had been infected by bacteria. The dining hall at the construction site did not have refrigerators to keep pork fresh and safe.
Wuchang District Health Bureau ordered the dining hall, which went into operation without a sanitation permit in March, to suspend business for rectification and official inspections.
Luo Changgang, Wuchang Party secretary, ordered thorough inspections of all dining halls in the district's construction sites. Those that do not meet sanitation requirements have to be closed, Luo said.
There were no further reports on the 4 trapped after a coal mine blast in Yongshan Coal Mine, Jiangxi Province on Thursday, or of the 25 missing after Sunday's mine flooding in Tengda Coal Mine, Jilin Province.
(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2005)
