AP News, February 11th, 2007
Officials and mining executives in central China have been accused of concealing the severity of an accident last week that killed 24 coal miners, not seven as initially reported, state media said Sunday.
Police have arrested five people, including the owner and manager of the Xing'an coal mine, and four officials have been dismissed for trying to conceal some of the deaths from the Feb. 2 mine explosion in Henan province, the Beijing Morning Post and other newspapers said.
The newspapers said Xing'an reported that seven miners had died in the blast, and mine owner Fu Faming ordered miners back into the shaft to seal it with earth in an attempt to bury evidence of the deaths.
"The number of deaths is 24, not seven, as announced previously by the local authorities. The deaths of 17 miners were deliberately concealed," a Xinhua News Agency report carried by newspapers quoted Li Jiucheng, director of Henan's mine safety bureau, as saying.
China's robust economic growth has pushed up the demand and price for coal, driving many mine operators to raise production to maximize profits. But lax enforcement of safety standards has made Chinese mines among the world's deadliest, with about 13 miners dying on average every day last year.
Collusion between mine owners and local officials to share profits and cover up accidents has frustrated the central government's attempts to improve mine safety.
Reporters who traveled to villages around the Xing'an mine after the explosion had been told of a higher death toll, casting doubt on the official accounts, the media sources said.
