87 workers perish in China mine disaster

The death toll from a coal mine blast in northeast China climbed to 87 on Sunday as rescuers hunted for 21 workers still trapped deep underground in the nation's deadliest mine disaster in two years.

The explosion on Saturday tore through the state-run mine in Heilongjiang province near the Russian border, one of the largest and oldest in China, after a build-up of gas, survivors said. With the main entrance blocked by debris, rescue teams equipped with oxygen tanks were accessing the shaft from an adjacent mine, braving high gas levels to search for survivors, media reports said. In a statement on its website, the Heilongjiang Work Safety Supervision Bureau said 87 people were confirmed dead and 21 were still stuck in the mine in Hegang City.

Rescuers had located a site where eight workers remained stuck but it was unclear if they were alive, the China News Service reported. "We were preparing to evacuate when the explosion occurred, sending glass and rocks flying everywhere," miner Wang Xingang told China National Radio. "We began running out and shouting to evacuate. Smoke was everywhere. I couldn't see at all. I was trying to feel my way out from my memory of the shaft."

The explosion occurred early Saturday when a total of 528 miners were in the pit, according to a statement by the State Administration of Work Safety. Local news reports said the blast was felt 10 kilometers away. The accident was the deadliest of its kind in the energy-hungry nation since an explosion killed 105 miners in Shanxi province in December 2007. "I was with a group of 10 miners.... Right now I don't know if they made it out," mining veteran Fu Maofeng, 48, told the East Asia Trade News from his hospital bed.

Miners near the shaft entrance were told to evacuate after gas levels in the mine rose sharply, he told the paper. When he and two others reached the entrance, a huge blast ripped through the main shaft, he said. Rescue workers have identified 28 areas in the mine, some 500 meters below ground, where teams were working at the time of the blast. One miner, identified as Hu Yu, told the China Youth Daily he had nearly passed out due to gas in the mine two hours before the explosion and was almost delirious as he fled the shaft.

Over 400 miners escaped - about half of them ahead of the blast - with more than 60 hospitalized with injuries. "Most of the injured are suffering from compound injuries, like respiratory injuries, broken bones and gas poisoning," Pan Xiaowen, director of Hegang general hospital, told the radio station. On Saturday, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao issued orders to take all measures to rescue workers, while Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang was dispatched to the mine to oversee the operation, state media said.

The head, deputy head and chief engineer of the mine, which is run by the majority state-owned Heilongjiang Longmay Mining Holding Group, have been removed from their posts, the China News Service said. The director of the work safety administration is to lead an investigation into the blast, it added. China's state prosecutor will also launch a probe to determine whether criminal negligence led to the disaster, China Central Television said.