Showing posts with label Mine Accidents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mine Accidents. Show all posts

Coal mine fire in northeast China kills 21

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The entrance of a coal mine where a fire accident happened in Jixi, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Nov. 21, 2015.
Twenty-one workers were killed today when a fire engulfed a state-owned coal mine in China's northeast Heilongjiang province, one of the deadliest accidents to hit the world's largest coal producer. 

One missing mine worker was located safely. 

Rescuers have found bodies of 21 workers after a coal mine caught fire in Jixi city of the province late last evening, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. 

A total of 38 miners were working down in the shaft when the fire broke out at the mine in Jixi city operated by the state-owned Heilongjiang Longmay Mining Holding Group. 16 of them managed to escape. 

The government said the fire was under control and no secondary disaster had been reported. 

President of the mining group Hao Fukun said rescuers could reach the missing miner by midnight. The report, however, did not mention the condition of the missing person who was safely traced. 

The communication, power supply and hoisting system in the shaft have been resumed, Hao said, adding the ventilation condition has been significantly improved. 

The coal mine, with a production capacity of two million tonnes every year, is fully licensed, the report said. 

Accidents have become common as energy hungry China, world's largest producer of coal, depends a lot on coal supplies to fire its economy. 

This is the deadliest mine incident since April this year when a water leak at a coal mine killed 21 people in the northern city of Datong in Shanxi province. 

In August, 10 people were killed in two separate accidents at coal mines in China. In October, one person was killed in Shandong province.


Source: Business Standard

Five miners rescued in Tanzania after 41 days trapped underground

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Five miners have been rescued in Tanzania after surviving 41 days trapped underground by a landslide in a small-scale gold mine, but at least 12 others are still missing.
The group, who had gone underground to rescue 11 other miners when they became trapped, survived by eating roots, cockroaches and frogs, and drinking drips of muddy groundwater, Press TV reports.
The accident occurred in early October at Kahama district, Shinyanga region, near the licensed Bulyanhulu and Buzwagi gold mines, which are owned by Acacia Mining (LON:ACA), formerly African Barrick Gold.
This is one of the longest periods that miners have remained trapped underground. In Chile, 33 were rescued after 69 days in 2010
This is one of the longest periods that miners have remained trapped underground. In Chile, 33 were rescued after 69 days in 2010, in a rescue operation that gained worldwide attention.
Tanzania, Africa's fourth-largest gold producer, is also rich in diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires. But illegal mining has cost the life of many since the sector began booming with economic liberalization policies applied in the mid-1980s.
Before multinationals arrived in Tanzania, small-scale miners largely conducted the extraction of minerals in the country.
According to a 2013 report by the International Institute for Environment and Development, small-scale mining in the country employs 10 times more people than large-scale mining globally. And the areas where the artisanal gold miners work remain largely unregulated, with many using child labour.
Only in the last three year more than 12,000 children as young as eight have been rescued from the country’s small-scale gold mines, according to children's rights group Plan International.
An illegal gold mine collapsed in the same district in April killing 19 people.