China safety body says rules ignored in mine flood

[March 31, 2010]  XIANGNING, China (AP) -- Mine officials ignored safety rules and danger warnings in their haste to open a coal mine in northern China, leading to a flood that has trapped 153 workers since the weekend, a government safety body said Wednesday.

Officials say there have been no signs of life at the Wangjialing mine in Shanxi province since 108 miners escaped or were rescued following the flooding Sunday. Desperate relatives have traveled from afar to the site to demand that efforts to save the missing miners be speeded up.

About 1,000 rescuers have been working around the clock at the mine in southern Shanxi province, tunneling and laying pipes to drain away water, but hopes are fading.

The flood was triggered after workers who were tunneling broke through into an old shaft filled with water, the State Administration of Work Safety said in a notice posted on its Web site.

It also said the shaft became overcrowded as extra tunneling crews were assigned in a rush to finish the work, and that warning signs went unheeded.

"Water leaks were found numerous times on underground shafts," it said, but the mine's managers "did not follow the safety instructions or guidelines when the leaks were reported and did not take the actions necessary to evacuate people."

The preliminary findings confirm what some miners and state media have said in the days following the flood. The official China Daily reported Wednesday that managers of the company in charge of construction have gone missing. It said they were the ones who ignored alarms about water leaks.

It could prove to be the deadliest mine accident in China since a coal mine flood in eastern Shandong province in August 2007 killed 172 miners. The latest disaster is a setback to recent, significant improvements in Chinese mines, which have a dire safety record. They are the world's deadliest, claiming thousands of lives each year.

A Wangjialing miner said workers were angered because officials did not respond to their demands for answers.

"The victims stuck underground may not be my family but they are like my brothers. Our hearts are filled with anger," said 40-year-old Zhong Nanxiang, who has been a miner for 20 years. "But who can we turn to for an answer? The leaders won't talk to us. We are from the lowest level of society. We are the weak ones. You call this the People's Republic of China?"

Dozens of family members have turned up at the mine demanding explanations and quicker action in heated confrontations with officials. By Wednesday, most of the relatives had been moved off the site to a nearby town and security was beefed up. The main, winding mountain road leading to the mine was sealed off by police, who allowed only authorized vehicles to pass.

At the site, dozens of police officers, many carrying batons, stood guard around workers' dormitories, preventing the remaining two dozen or so family members from getting close to the mine shaft.

"They've been standing here all night," said Wang Wenkui, 24, a miner who lives at the dormitory. "It's because of the family members who were here yesterday. They don't want them to cause trouble."

Cao Yuying, 30, from Henan province, said he was waiting for news about his 45-year-old uncle who is stuck below, but was getting impatient.

"They are not working fast enough. I believe they are not actually interested in rescue work. They are just trying to resume production," said Cao, who added police and government officials had tried to keep him in a hotel in a nearby city, but he had made it out to the mine at night.

"I will wait here until they rescue people," he said.

Rescue efforts continued with large cranes lifting heavy metal pipes off trucks and onto the ground where workers measured and cut them. Officials in green military-style coats and red safety helmets huddled together in discussions around the entrance to a shaft, pointing to sheets of papers in their hands. Workers bent over to check levels of large oxygen tanks meant for ensuring sufficient air supply to rescuers underground.

The work safety agency said 261 workers were inside the Wangjialing mine when it flooded Sunday, and 108 escaped or were rescued. The 153 workers who remained underground were believed to be trapped in nine different places in the mine, which was flooded with up to 5 million cubic feet (140,000 cubic meters) of water, state television said.

In an indication of the slow progress, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that as of Tuesday night, pumping had dropped the water level in the flooded shaft by just 15 centimeters (about six inches).

The mine, which was not yet in operation when the accident happened, covers about 70 square miles (180 square kilometers). Xinhua said it was expected to produce 6 million tons of coal annually once it opened later this year.

Accidents killed 2,631 coal miners in China last year, down from 6,995 deaths in 2002, the most dangerous year on record, according to the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety. That is an average of more than seven miners a day in 2009, down from 19 in 2002.

[Associated Press; By GILLIAN WONG]

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.