Police hunt owner of mine where 105 died

POLICE are hunting for the owner of a coal mine in Shanxi Province where a gas blast killed 105 people in the country's second deadliest mining accident this year, authorities said yesterday.

Police have already detained 35 people believed to have played a role in the fatal explosion on Wednesday night. Among those detained were the mine's manager, Gao Jianmin, and Wang Hongliang, its legal representative.

In a separate accident, also in north China, 11 men were rescued from a collapsed iron and gold mine yesterday after being trapped for more than five days.

The central government has formed a special team to investigate the blast at the Xinyao colliery in Hongtong County of Shanxi Province. Li Yizhong, director of the State Administration for Work Safety, is to head the team.

At a meeting to announced the formation of the team, Meng Xuenong, Shanxi's acting governor, said: "We feel very sorrowful and guilty about the accident," adding that Shanxi should draw lessons from the accident and improve work safety, especially in coal mines.

Li Tiantai, mayor of Linfen which administers Hongtong, has apologized to the families of victims on behalf of the municipal government .

The accident is China's second deadliest mining accident so far this year. In August, 181 miners died when heavy rain flooded two mines in the eastern Shandong Province.

After initial investigations, authorities attributed the high death toll at Hongtong mine partly to a delay on the part of colliery management. Xinyao executives waited more than five hours before calling in outside rescuers.

During that time, they organized their own rescue effort. But 15 of 37 miners sent into the shaft to search for survivors died from carbon monoxide poisoning, the State Administration for Work Safety said.

In addition, the mine owner and other chief executives fled after the accident, greatly hampering rescue operations.

Of the 60 rescued miners, 18 were injured, including four who were in a serious condition, Li said.

When the accident happened, 128 miners were working underground. Shanxi's coal mine authorities allow a maximum of 60 in a single shift, according to Xinhua news agency.

Elsewhere in Hebei Province, 11 men were helped out of a private iron and gold ore pit at about 1:15am yesterday, some 129 hours after it caved in on Monday night. They were said to be in a stable condition in hospital.

The mine owner didn't report the accident to authorities in Chengde City until Thursday morning. An investigation is under way.