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20 July, 2005
China recorded further mass deaths in yet another coal mine disaster over the weekend. On 19 March, a gas blast at Xishui colliery near Shuozhou, Shanzi province, killed 60, with another nine miners still missing. The explosion collapsed a wall in the adjacent Kangjiayao mine and several of the dead and trapped miners were working there. The Xishui mine was ordered shut last November for safety reasons, but mine owners—now being held by police—restarted production early this year in defiance of authorities. This latest disaster comes a mere two days after another gas explosion killed 19 miners in Chongquing in southwestern Sichuan province. And on 14 March, a gas blast at Qitaihe Coal Field Group killed 18 at the Xinfu mine in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang province.