Chinese authorities on Tuesday tried to placate anguished relatives of 181 men trapped in flooded coal mine shafts with little hope of survival as accusations spread of official failures and censorship.
The miners have been trapped since Friday when a river dyke burst in torrential rain, sending water rushing into two mine shafts in the eastern province of Shandong -- a main one where 172 miners were working and another nearby where there were nine.
Rescuers continued frantic efforts to pump the mines dry in the faint hope that some of those trapped were still alive.
“For those family members of miners who rushed to the site, the local government is actively working to settle them in accommodation and has brought people to greet and console them in order to safeguard order and stability in the coal mining area,” said a notice on the central government’s Web site.
Smashing windows
Relatives of missing miners on Monday stormed the offices of Huayuan Mining Co., which runs the bigger shaft, smashing windows and accusing managers of not telling families what was happening.
Even some of China’s state-run newspapers cast aside restraint to accuse authorities of failing to protect workers and silencing reporting of the calamities that often strike mines and worksites.
“This seems to be a natural disaster, but when such natural disasters happen so often they cannot be just blamed on the pitilessness of nature,” said the China Youth Daily.
Relatives also furiously disputed the local government’s description of the mine flood as a natural disaster.
“The weather is a factor, but man-made factors are also extremely large. Last year, there was also a leak in the mine, so I wouldn’t want the government to jump a conclusion about the cause,” said Zhang Chunling, whose brother is one of the missing.
One man said he saw mine managers on Friday trying to close the breach in the river rather than warning those underground, the China Daily reported.
2,000 killed
More than 2,000 people have been killed in China’s coal mines in the first seven months of this year alone, despite repeated government campaigns to clean up the industry that has long been the world’s deadliest.
China’s death rate from mining accidents was 70 times that of the United States in 2005 and seven times worse than Russia and India, Xinhua news agency reported.
Only a day before the disaster, safety officials gathered in Xintai discussed the threat of floods in coal mines, showing that officials knew of seasonal risks from flooding.
But the ruling Communist Party keeps a tight leash on reports of mining and other disasters, often telling newspapers to stick to officially-vetted recitations of rescue efforts and leaders’ instructions.
The Southern Metropolis Daily, a popular tabloid, said officials had failed to keep families informed and denounced the censorship.
“In each place where a disaster strikes, the forces of public scrutiny are regularly restricted and left helpless, and we see nothing of the dead -- not their names, sex, families, or their sighs and smiles when they were still alive,” it said.
