Rescuers yesterday turned their attention to putting out the fire inside the waste rock hill to prevent possible hazards after recovering all eight people missing in a waste rock hill collapse and eruption in Pingdingshan City of central Henan Province.
The death toll stood at eight about 40 hours after the accident, which also left 122 others injured and destroyed 18 houses nearby. Six people wounded in the collapse were still in critical condition, according to four hospitals where they are being treated.
Smoke still billowed out of the waste rock hill and cracked rocks fell at times from the 80-meter-high pileup.
Rescuers plan to pave several channels to extinguish the fire by spraying liquid carbon dioxide across the hill surface while injecting chemicals inside the waste rock to stop the rock from self inflaming again.
The "rarely seen" collapse occurred at about 7:40pm on Sunday, burying 18 houses some 100 meters away from the waste rock hill, which belongs to the Pingdingshan Coal Industrial Group, one of the province's major coal producers.
Shortly after the accident, more than 200 coal mine rescuers armed with bulldozers were mobilized by the local government to dig out the trapped miners under the debris. Some had to use spades or even their hands to search for survivors.
The coal ore mixed among the rocks suddenly erupted and broke into fire due to exposure to pouring rain during the rescue efforts, causing about 40 rescuers to suffer burns to different extent and blocking a nearby highway below the mountain.
"We have rarely experienced such rock hill eruption and fires for 50 years since we began exploring," said an official with the coal group who is guiding the rescue work. "We have never heard about reports of such accidents in other mines."
A group of experts from China Mining University and Henan University of Technology has arrived at the scene to help.
(Xinhua)