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| Sunday, 4 December 2005 |
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Death toll from China mine blast reaches 169 SHANGHAI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The death toll from an explosion in a coal mine in northeast China has risen to 169, with two people still missing, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday. Rescuers found the remains of three more miners killed in the blast at the state-owned Dongfeng coal mine in Heilongjiang province, Xinhua said. The dead include 167 miners who were working underground when the explosion happened last Sunday and two workers who were in a generator room at ground level. There were 242 miners underground at the time of the blast. Of those, 73 survived. Authorities have shut down the colliery, run by a branch of the Heilongjiang Longmei Mining (Group) Co. Ltd., and detained several top officials. The coal mine operator and the party chief of the Dongfeng coal mine were removed from their posts and the general manager of Longmei Group's Qitaihe branch was also dismissed. The disaster was a setback for President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao who are campaigning to clean up the world's biggest and deadliest mining industry. Some 6,000 Chinese miners were killed last year and at least 2,700 have died in the first half of 2005. |
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