A gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in central China yesterday, killing at least 34 workers, the government said.
The blast occurred at 4:45am at the No. 2 Coal Mine of the Hebi Coal Industry (Group) Corporation Ltd in Hebi, a city in Henan Province.
Fifty-three workers were in the mine when the accident took place.
By late yesterday, 34 miners were found dead and 19 were rescued.
Senior provincial government officials, including Party Secretary Xu Guangchun and Deputy Governor Shi Jichun, rushed to the site.
The cause of the explosion was under investigation.
Six thousand miners died in coal-mine accidents in China last year and a further 2,672 in the first six months of this year.
Most of the victims were farmers who had just left the land to earn more money in the mines.
In July, the central government ordered 5,290 coal mines to close pending safety inspections.
On August 7, 123 miners died in the illegal Daxing Coal Mine in Xingning City in south China's Guangdong Province.
The mine had been operating without a license and in violation of local government orders to close for inspections after flooding at another mine in the city killed 16 miners in July.
Shanghai Daily contacted the Hebi Coal Group yesterday, but an official at the production department declined to comment.
A reporter from the provincial newspaper, the Dahe Daily, who was in Hebi yesterday, said police cordoned off the site after the explosion.
According to the group's Website, the company is one of the 520 key state-owned enterprises.
Its total assets reached 4.636 billion yuan (US$572 million) last year and its revenue was 3.467 billion yuan.
(Xinhua/Shanghai Daily)