The death toll from a collapse at a coal mine in northern China rose to four, state media reported yesterday, as the search for dozens still missing resumed after a massive landslide hindered progress overnight.
More than 50 people were trapped when a 180m-high slope gave way at the open-pit mine in the Inner Mongolia region’s Alxa Left Banner area at about 1pm on Wednesday, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported.
Hundreds of rescue workers were dispatched to the remote site, but another landslide later that day temporarily halted efforts to save those trapped beneath the rubble.
Photo: EPA-EFE / XINHUA / BEI HE
Rescuers have since resumed their work, CCTV reported at about noon yesterday, adding that at least four people had been killed in the incident, with six injured and 49 still unaccounted for.
Footage from the broadcaster showed rescue workers in orange overalls and yellow helmets dwarfed by a mountain of rust-coloured rubble, and excavators working to clear some of the debris.
“I had just started work when I saw slag falling down the slope. The situation got worse and worse,” a rescued worker named Ma Jianping told CCTV.
Photo: EPA-EFE / XINHUA / LIAN ZHEN
“We tried to organize an evacuation, but it was too late — the slope came down,” he said from a hospital bed in the Ningxia region, a catheter protruding from his throat.
The injured people were all in stable conditions, CCTV reported a doctor at the hospital as saying.
State media initially reported that the collapse had affected a “wide area” of the mine operated by Xinjing Coal Mining Co.
It was not clear what caused the collapse and calls to the company went unanswered yesterday.
CCTV said that police were investigating the collapse, with “the relevant personnel currently under control.”
The report did not share further details.
A video posted on social media by a coal truck driver on Wednesday showed rocks cascading down a slope, kicking up clouds of dust that engulfed several vehicles.
“The whole slope has collapsed... How many people must be dead from that?” a male voice can be heard saying in the background. “If I’d lined up over there today, I’d have died in there, too.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has instructed authorities to “do everything possible to search for and rescue the missing people,” state media reported on Wednesday.
Located in China’s arid north, Alxa League — which includes the Alxa Left Banner — is a sparsely populated region whose economy runs largely on mining and other extractive industries.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS