Rescuers pumping water from Chinese mine

Such negligence is common in China, where coal is an addiction and the mines are among the deadliest in the world, with about 6,000 deaths a year. China relies on coal for two-thirds of the energy needed to fuel the robust economy. Mines routinely disregard safety regulations — and appeals from Beijing — to mine more coal and make more money.

Decent wages, grim living
Even by these standards, the situation at Xinjing appeared particularly dismal. Wages were as high as $600 a month — a huge sum in a country with an annual average income of about $1,000.

Yet living conditions were grim and primitive for the 1,500 miners and their family members, mostly migrants from poorer rural areas. Dormitories of wood and brick spread across the bottom of a dry creek bed below the mine, where garbage blew in the breeze. There appeared to be no sewage system or running water.

Police maintained checkpoints along roads leading to the mine and a dozen cruisers patrolled the area, possibly to guard against violence by angry miners or relatives of the missing.

State media, which often gives scant attention to mining disasters, gave prominent coverage to Xinjing’s problems, underscoring Beijing’s anger.

Family members whisked away
When the accident occurred, managers reported only five fatalities, later revising the number of missing to 44 and then 57, the reports said. Family members of the missing were driven across the nearby provincial boundary into Inner Mongolia to keep them quiet, reports said.

Managers didn’t keep track of how many miners were in the pit during shifts and dismissed warnings from miners about water leaks in the shaft at least three days before the accident, state media reported.

Miners who wouldn’t give their names said accidents were frequent and complained that managers pressured them to dig faster or be fired.

The trapped miners were reportedly mining a seam outside the mine’s approved operating range when they bored through to an abandoned shaft filled with water that streamed in under high pressure, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Standing outside his tiny dormitory room beside a stinking toilet, a miner from the central province of Henan said he simply ran when he heard shouts that water had entered the mine.

“I was near the entrance, and when we heard there was water, we ran,” said the man, who would only give his surname, Wang.

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