Compiled by Caijing staff

From Caijing Online

On December 17, a coal-dust and gas explosion in a coal mine in Fukou town, Lianyuan city, Hunan province trapped 18 of the 32 people working in the mine. Xinhua’s website reported that the accident blocked a tunnel over 100 meters long. Rescue teams from Lianyuan and Loudi cities were called and started searching for the trapped workers at 5pm the same day – while the Lianyuan local government sent out an emergency announcement calling for all mines to carry out safety checks. Government officials responsible for mining safety were sacked from their jobs, and the mine's owners are currently under investigation by the police.

Fukou town is located in the northwestern part of Lianyuan city, and sits over 100 million tons of coal reserves. Currently ten mines are operating according to the local government’s website. The Guaziyan coal mine where the accident happened was blacklisted for safety reasons in 2005. Caijing's reporter found out that the Guaziyan mine had been asked to cease operations after failing safety checks, and subsequently re-opened. However several other accidents have happened since – 2 people were killed in an explosion on August 15 2006 and another 2 seriously injured in a gas explosion on July 12 2008.

Recent years have seen many mining accidents in the area around Fukou, highlighting poor safety conditions for miners working in the industry. On December 13 of 2004, an explosion and fire in a mine in Jinpan village, Fukou town, caused two deaths and one injury. On September 8, five people died in a gas and coal-dust explosion in the Jinyi coal mine of Fukou town. On December 23 2006, in the Wenquan coal mine in Fukou town, an accident killed one person and a 367,000 yuan loss. On September 7 2007, another accident killed one person and caused losses of 696 thousand yuan in the Damao coal mine. On March 28 2008, one miner died due to gas poisoning in a Liangtian mine. Later that year on August 26, another accident in the same mine killed one person and caused a loss of 730,000 yuan.

Full article in Chinese: http://www.caijing.com.cn/2008-12-18/110040258.html