A gas blast killed 24 coal miners in China's northern province of Shanxi just a day after 53 died in two separate mining accidents.
BEIJING: A gas blast killed 24 coal miners in China's northern province of Shanxi just a day after 53 died in two separate mining accidents, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
China has the world's deadliest coal mining industry with fatal accidents on an almost daily basis as safety regulations are ignored and production is pushed beyond limits in the rush for profits.
In the latest disaster, a power failure disabled the ventilation system at the Luweitan coal mine in Linfen on Sunday and led to an accumulation of gas, Xinhua said.
All 24 bodies had been recovered at the colliery, which has an annual output of 150,000 tonnes, it said.
"The mine's production and safety licences had both expired," Xinhua said, adding police had detained its owner but the general manager had fled.
Shanxi, which produces a quarter of China's coal but is notorious for colliery disasters, had just sacked two local government officials for three accidents at unlicensed coal mines that killed a total of 55 people in past weeks.
It has also ordered a ;one by one; inspection of all small coal mines and vowed to shut down those falling short of safety standards.
But many Chinese officials have secretly flouted orders to close mines as they don't want to lose tax revenue and, in some cases, dividends from their own stakes in the business.
On Saturday, at least 21 miners died and six were missing after a blast at the Yuanhua coal mine in Jixi city in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
A gas explosion the same day killed 32 miners and injured 28 at a privately owned coal mine in Fuyuan, a mountainous county in the southwestern province of Yunnan.
A gas blast also killed 47 at a large state-owned coal mine in Shanxi on Nov. 5.
A total of 3,726 miners died in over 2,300 floods, blasts and other accidents in China in the first 10 months of 2006.
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