A gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s northern province of Shanxi, the country’s main coal mining province, killed at least 82 people, local officials said Saturday.
The cause of the explosion, which took place on Friday evening at the Liushenyu coal mine in the city of Changzhi, is under investigation.
With a size larger than Greece and a population of around 34 million, the province’s hundreds of thousands of miners dug 1.3 billion metric tons of coal last year — nearly a third of China’s total.
Mining disasters are common in China, where rapid industrialization came with intense resource exploitation, poor working conditions and a weak regulatory framework.
Mine owners and local officials are frequently blamed for putting profits ahead of safety. Underground explosions often are blamed on lack of ventilation equipment to clear gas that seeps from the coal bed. In the past two decades, the Chinese government has been making efforts to reduce mining deaths, by improving safety and closing some smaller mines.
Here are some major incidents:
2023: 53 people were killed after a collapse at an open-pit mine in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region.
2009: 108 miners died as a result of a gas explosion at the state-run Xinxing mine in Heilongjiang province near the border with Russia. State broadcaster CCTV displayed a diagram showing the miners trapped about a third of a mile underground. Footage showed one entrance was blocked and rescuers in orange suits with breathing equipment attempting to enter through another.
2005: 171 people died in a blast at the Dongfeng coal mine in Qitaihe in Heilongjiang province.
2005: 214 miners were killed following a gas explosion at the Sunjiawan coal mine in the Liaoning province in China’s northeast.
2004: 166 died in a gas explosion at the Chenjiashan coal mine in the Shaanxi province, in China’s northwest.
2004: 148 people were killed in a gas explosion at the Daping coal mine in China’s inland Henan province.
2000: 162 people died after an explosion at the Muchonggou coal mine in the mountainous Guizhou province in China’s southwest.
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This story has been corrected to note that the amount of coal dug in the province in a year is 1.3 million metric tons.
