Shanxi<\/a> province, located southwest of Beijing with a population of around 34 million, is China\u2019s main coal-mining area.<\/p>\nA few hundred meters (yards) from the mine lies the village of Shangzhuang, where some of the miners who work at the site live, including some of the victims, residents said.<\/p>\n
The village includes a single main street through which mining trucks pass. On both sides stand two-story houses, some with red-tiled roofs. Some of them are divided into separate rooms and rented out to people including miners.<\/p>\n
After the explosion, other mines in the area shut down and some miners left, while others stayed behind waiting to receive their pay, residents said.<\/p>\n
Wang Linjun, a coal miner at Liushenyu, said he was at home when the gas explosion occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart is very heavy,\u201d he told the AP. \u201cThinking that those who eat together and work together suddenly are gone, no one would feel good.\u201d Wang said he does not want to continue at the job, but doesn\u2019t know where to go.<\/p>\n
Miners can be paid more than 10,000 yuan ($1,500) a month.<\/p>\n
Feng Renfu, also a miner at Liushenyu, said he was working underground in a pit next to the one where the accident took place. Feng said he and his co-workers smelled gas and withdrew from the underground.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father is over 80 and he is worried about me. He always calls me to check if I am safe and well in my job,\u201d Feng said. \u201cThere are eight people in my family and they all depend on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Safety lapses investigated<\/h2>\n
The coal mine has \u201cseriously\u201d violated the law, according to local officials, although they did not elaborate on the specific violations. China\u2019s state broadcaster CCTV reported that blueprints provided by the Liushenyu coal mine did not match the actual layout, which hampered rescue efforts.<\/p>\n
State media said those responsible had been \u201cplaced under control.\u201d On Sunday, a commentary in the official People\u2019s Daily newspaper called for all regions and departments to learn from the accident and to \u201calways keep safety in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local authorities also announced a \u201ccomprehensive, blanket\u201d inspection of the coal mining sector that would include checks of coal mines\u2019 gas drainage, ventilation, safety monitoring systems and their underground layouts.<\/p>\n
A broader inspection of coal mines could put pressure on the province\u2019s ability to produce its annual capacity of around 1.3 billion metric tons of coal, which accounts for nearly a third of China\u2019s total. The country\u2019s total coal output rose to approximately 4.8 billion metric tons last year.<\/p>\n
China still relies on coal<\/h2>\n
Coal remains a major energy source in China, given its high availability and low cost, even as the country accelerates its green energy transition. Mining accidents were common and authorities had implemented measures to help improve safety over the past years.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s National Mine Safety Administration in 2024 put the Liushenyu mine, operated by the privately run Shanxi Tongzhou group, on a national list of disaster-prone coal mines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities in northern China were investigating a coal mine operator with a focus on safety lapses, as rescuers searched for those missing in the country\u2019s deadliest coal mine explosion in recent years that killed at least 82 people. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. An Associated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-conditions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39089,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39087\/revisions\/39089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}