Blast kills 11 in northern China
Explosives stored at a coal mine manager’s house blew up in a town in northern China, killing him and at least 10 other people, including two students at a nearby school, news reports and police said today.
Police denied a newspaper report that the school had collapsed, killing as many as 20 children, after yesterday’s blast in Kecheng, a town in Shanxi province, a major coal-mining region.
The official Xinhua News Agency put the death toll at 11 and said it included two students and a teacher at the school.
The mine manager, Lu Maolin, was killed, along with several family members, according to an officer at the county police station. He said several people were killed when a nearby clinic collapsed.
“We are investigating the cause of the explosion,” said the officer.
He denied a report by the newspaper Shanxi Commercial News that a school near Lu’s house had collapsed, killing 20 students. He said that building was still standing.
China’s coal mining industry is the world’s deadliest, with thousands of deaths reported every year despite a government safety campaign.
The country also suffers hundreds of deaths a year from the mishandling of explosives used for mining, construction and fireworks manufacturing.
