Gas explosion kills 17 at coal mine in southwest China

The blast ripped through the Laochonggou coal mine in Dongshan town near Qujing city on Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Rescuers found 13 bodies and four other miners were missing but "definitely dead", a Dongshan police spokesman said. The four could not live for more than half an hour in the dense poisonous gas that spread through the mine after the blast, the spokesman said. Three managers were among the dead and four other managers of the unlicensed mine faced possible criminal charges, he said.

Accidents kill up to 10,000 miners annually, according to government statistics. Gas explosions at two other coal mines in Qujing this year claimed "lives and heavy losses", Xinhua said without giving details. An underground gas explosion at a licensed coal mine in nearby Shuzong county killed 16 people on November 16, state media said. Another 51 miners are believed to have died in a blast at a coal mine in China's Inner Mongolia region on November 25, though rescuers have yet to reach 40 of the miners, who remain trapped underground.

An official report said poor safety and overworking were the main causes of an explosion that killed 162 miners at a large state-run coal mine in Guizhou province, southwest China, on September 27. China also has hundreds of illegal mines where safety standards are generally much lower than in licensed mines.

(dpa)