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Bloomberg

China Recovers Bodies of Remaining Trapped Coal Miners; 37 Dead

October 18, 2010, 11:41 PM EDT

By Bloomberg News=============================================================

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Rescuers recovered the bodies of the five remaining coal miners trapped by an underground gas blast in Henan province, bringing the total death toll to 37 in China’s deadliest mining disaster since June.

The bodies were found at 7.35 a.m. local time after about 300 rescuers pushed through 2,500 metric tons of coal dust at the pit in central China, the State Administration of Work Safety said on its website today.

China, the world’s biggest coal producer and consumer, has the worst mine safety record, with an average of seven deaths each day in accidents last year. The explosion at Pingyu city follows a blast at Pingdingshan, also in Henan province, that killed 48 workers.

The Oct. 16 Pingyu blast blocked 170 meters (186 yards) of passageway, causing an accumulation of flammable gases that had hindered rescue efforts, China National Radio said. A similar incident in the same mine killed 23 people in August 2008, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera had offered to help China in the Pingyu accident, saying his country has learnt lessons from its rescue of 33 miners trapped underground for more than two months, Agence France-Presse reported on Oct. 16.

A total of 276 miners were in the pit when the incident occurred, of whom 239 managed to escape immediately, the State Administration of Work Safety said yesterday.

The Pingdingshan incident in June was the worst mining disaster since more than 100 died in an explosion in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in November last year.

--Chua Baizhen and Wang Ying. Editors: Clyde Russell, Ryan Woo.

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To contact the Bloomberg staff on this story: Baizhen Chua in Beijing at bchua14@bloomberg.net; Ying Wang in Beijing at ywang30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Clyde Russell at crussell7@bloomberg,net

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