Hope vanishes for trapped coalminers

BEIJING - A wall of thick smoke blocked rescuers from reaching 141 miners trapped after a gas explosion in a coalmine in northern China.

Hopes of finding them alive vanished yesterday as officials and angry relatives blamed the disaster on the management's drive for profit.

A total of 127 miners escaped from the state-owned Chenjiashan Coal mine in Shaanxi province after the explosion, which could be the worst disaster to hit the world's most dangerous mining industry in four years.

A mine official said it was impossible for those missing to have survived because there was no air in the underground area where they were trapped, the China Daily reported.

"They have no chance of surviving at all, not even a 1 per cent chance," said Yan Mangxue, Communist Party Secretary for Yaoyu village, where 14 of the trapped miners were from.

A picture of officials consoling the weeping wife of a miner was published on the front of the English-language newspaper.

Many of the grieving directed their anger at the mine's management after it was revealed a fire broke out at the same pit and high gas density was detected about a week ago.

Some miners had refused to return to work but mine officials were eager to boost production and had threatened to fine or suspend absentees, said the Chinese-language China Youth Daily.

China's coalmines, which provide the main fuel for the world's seventh-biggest economy, have a dismal safety record that has been underscored by a series of major accidents this year.

The blast on Sunday could be the worst since a September 2000 explosion in the southern province of Guizhou killed 162 people.

Zhao Tiechui, deputy head of the State Production Safety Bureau, said the priorities were to repair ventilation equipment damaged in the explosion and to guarantee the safety of rescuers, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Of the miners who escaped, 45 were injured and in hospital, Xinhua said. Some had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning.

China's Communist Party chief, Hu Jintao, urged local officials to "take substantial steps and spare no efforts" to save the trapped miners, said the China Daily.

About 2000 rescue workers have rushed to the mine, about 740km southwest of Beijing, along with the Communist Party's provincial head and the acting provincial Governor.

The blast occurred two days after the Shaanxi Government ordered tougher mine inspections and closure of any mines with insufficient or substandard ventilation.

Xinhua said the provincial Government had ordered all mines in Shaanxi with high gas concentrations to halt operations until safety examinations had been carried out.

Premier Wen Jiabao, speaking in Vientiane, Laos, said the accident highlighted the need for more high-level attention to safety measures.

Beijing has tried to clamp down on safety violations at mines. Official figures show 4153 coalmine deaths in the first nine months of this year, down 630, or more than 13 per cent, on the same period last year.

A mine blast in the central province of Henan this month killed 33, and another last month killed 148 miners.

- REUTERS