Mine collapse in China: six dead, nearly 50 missing

February 25, 2023

Nearly 50 people were still missing in China on Friday after a mine site collapse left six people dead, according to a new report.

Rescue operations, involving hundreds of rescuers, continued two days after the tragedy, which occurred in Inner Mongolia, a region in the north of the country.

The workers were buried on Wednesday when a 180-meter-high hill collapsed at an open-pit coal mine, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Rescue operations had been interrupted after a landslide on Wednesday evening, but have since resumed according to CCTV, which specifies that the toll is now six dead, six injured and 47 missing.

China’s Ministry of Emergency Management called for “exerting all possible efforts to search for the missing persons without delay, and not to lose hope of finding them,” the Chinese news agency said on Friday. New China State.

“Saving lives remains the number one priority,” according to a ministry working group quoted by the agency, and “efforts must also be made to prevent secondary disasters” that may occur.

The channel aired images of rescuers in orange jumpsuits amid a mountain of rust-colored rubble, as well as diggers clearing some of the debris.

“We had just resumed work” when “we saw rocks starting to fall from the top of the hill. It was getting stronger and stronger,” surviving worker Ma Jianping told CCTV.

“It was decided to evacuate the premises. But it was already too late. The whole hill collapsed,” he said, lying on his hospital bed.

The causes of the tragedy are not yet known. The Xinjing Coal Mining Company, the operator of the mine site according to CCTV, did not respond to phone calls from AFP.

According to CCTV, a police investigation has been opened. New China said on Friday that the Ministry of Emergency Management had called for “a full investigation”.

A video posted on social media — allegedly posted by a coal truck driver — shows rocks cascading down a slope, kicking up clouds of brown dust that engulf several vehicles.

“The whole slope collapsed (…) How many people died because of this?” a male voice calls out from the background. “If I had lined up there today, I would have died in there too.”

The location where the tragedy occurred, the left banner of Alxa – the name of an administrative area in the region – is a sparsely populated area of Inner Mongolia, whose economy is largely based on mining.

Mine safety has improved in recent decades in the country, as has the media coverage of these incidents, many of which were once overlooked.

But accidents still occur regularly, due to the inherent danger of the sector and the sometimes random application of safety instructions.

At the end of December, 40 people were working underground at the time of the collapse of a gold mine in the Xinjiang region (Northwest) and 22 had been able to get out.

In December 2021, two miners who were stranded in a flooded coal mine in Shanxi (north) died and 20 others were saved after rescue operations.

And in September 2021, 19 miners trapped underground after the collapse of a coal mine in Qinghai province (Northwest) were found dead after a long search.