Chinese Mines Claim More Victims

Posted September 3rd, 2011 at 11:50 am (UTC-5)
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Another coal-mine accident in China has claimed the lives of 10 workers in the country's southwestern Sichuan province.

China's official Xinhua news agency said two more miners remain missing at the Zengjiagou mine , which flooded on Monday .

The mine's owner and a safety manager have been arrested.

This past Tuesday, emergency crews rescued 22 workers from an illegally operated mine near the northeastern city of Qitaihe. Three other miners have been trapped underground since that mine flooded 10 days ago, and reports from the scene Friday said they are not expected to survive.

About half the miners at work at the time of the Quitaihe accident escaped. The mine was flooded after a drilling error connected the coal shaft, reopened just one week earlier, with an adjacent abandoned shaft that already was full of water.

China's mines, many of which operate illegally, are among the world's deadliest, largely due to lax security measures.