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China mine disasters kill 20, landslide buries 10
Three coal mine accidents in China have killed at least 20 people, while a landslide buried at least 10 villagers.
Three coal mine accidents in China have killed at least 20 people, while a landslide buried at least 10 villagers, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday.
Fourteen miners died in a "coal and gas burst" in the early hours of Friday at a colliery in Yuzhou in central Henan province, Xinhua said. Eleven more remained trapped.
In neighbouring Shaanxi province, a pit collapse on Thursday trapped nine of 38 coal miners working underground at the time, Xinhua said.
A moderate mining-induced tremor at a mine in the northeastern province of Liaoning on Wednesday killed six workers and injured one, it said.
At least 10 villagers in Loufan county in the northern province of Shanxi were buried by a landslide on Friday morning, Xinhua said.
The mine disasters are the most recent in a grim series of accidents to blight China's coal industry, the deadliest in the world, as mine owners push production beyond safety limits in the face of huge demand and soaring profits.
A total of 3,786 Chinese coal miners died in gas blasts, flooding and other accidents in 2007, down 20 per cent from 2006.
Officials have said that China, undergoing rapid industrialisation, may need another decade before there is a drastic fall in mine and other industrial deaths.
