Illegal work blamed in mine disaster
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E-mail China Daily, December 4, 2012
Twenty-two miners were working underground when the accident occurred. Six managed to escape.
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Thirty-seven-year-old Sheng Naidong, a miner rescued after the accident, receives treatment at Qitaihe City People's Hospital on Monday. [Photo by Zhou Huiying/China Daily] |
Rescuers later found two workers, who were close to the ground. They were sent to Qitaihe City People's Hospital where they are in stable condition, according to their doctor Wang Qingbin.
The police have placed the mine's owner, Xiao Lidong, in custody, and frozen the mine's assets.
A preliminary investigation has found the mine transgressed its approved mining boundary, and miners accidentally drilled into a nearby pit that had been shut down and was flooded with water, Li said.
Zhang Hongyi, a nurse at the hospital, said the injured miners are receiving psychological counseling.
Wang Yaquan, one of the two miners rescued after the accident, said he and his colleagues heard a strange whistling sound when working in the pit on Saturday night before the water burst into the shaft.
He spent 10 hours trying to get out of the mine, meeting rescuers when he was 20 meters away from the exit.
The central government has pledged to close about 20,000 illegal and unsafe mines by 2015 in an effort to ensure safe mining, Yang Dongliang, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, told a conference on mine safety in September.
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