Society

HEGANG, Heilongjiang: Safety officials and investigators have blamed poor management and inadequate safety precautions for the coal mine blast that has claimed 104 lives so far in northeast China's Heilongjiang province.

As of 2:30 am Monday, four miners remained trapped at Xinxing Coal Mine, which is under the state-owned Heilongjiang Longmei Mining Holding Group's subsidiary in Hegang city.

Luo Lin, head of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), said Monday the accident started with a gas leak in one of the shafts. But as a result of poor ventilation, gas quickly poured into the main tunnel and triggered an explosion that shook 28 of all the 30 mining platforms in operation.

He said management of the mine were to blame for failing to evacuate the workers promptly after an extraordinarily high gas density was detected in the pit.

"Investigators are yet to determine the exact cause of the accident after a thorough probe at the site," said Luo.

"The accident has again revealed many problems in colliery management - it's a lesson we must all learn."

A total of 528 miners were working in the pit when Fan Minghua's gas detector beeped at 1:37 am Saturday. "I manually tested the gas density in the air, which read over 10 percent," said Fan, who has monitored gas density in the pit for four years.

Safety regulations rule that all miners must be evacuated when gas density exceeds 2 percent.

Fan shouted for everyone on his platform to escape, shut off the power and informed coordinators on the surface. He contacted other gas monitors, who together helped dozens of miners to flee.

Realizing that the nearest route to escape had been blocked by toppled equipment, gas monitor Wang Shili left a message on the wall with a chalk, "Dead end here. Exit from Northern Tunnel."

When miner Wang Naihui saw thick yellow smoke billow into the air, he immediately covered his mouth and nose with his towel. He poured some water on the face of his co-worker Lin Maohai who had fainted and dragged him out of the pit.

At a press conference Monday, journalists demanded an explanation as to why management of the mine failed to evacuate more people in the one hour between Fan's report and the blast. Mine official Zhang Jinguang, however, insisted evacuation was "timely."

"But evacuation took time and the miners had to run a long way from their mining platforms to the surface," said Zhang.

However, inadequate precautions and poor ventilation were apparently among the fatal failures, said Zhao Tiechui, deputy head of SAWS.

"The mine has too many mining platforms in operation and has sent too many workers down the pit to increase output," Zhao said Sunday. "Its underground structure, however, is far too complicated for its current ventilation system to work effectively."

Rescue work continued Monday for the four missing miners.

Sixty-five people were injured in the accident. Most of them suffered gas poisoning, burns, fractures and bruises. The provincial health authority has sent four psychologists to provide counseling.
 

The death toll from a coal mine explosion in the northeastern city of Hegang, Heilongjiang province, on Saturday jumped to at least 92, with 16 still trapped underground in China's worst mine disaster in almost two years.

More than 500 rescuers are working around the clock in freezing cold weather to locate the 16 workers -- who authorities fear are dead -- at Xinxing Coal Mine, a State-run subsidiary of the Heilongjiang Longmei Mining Holding Group, according to local sources.

Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang (1st R) visits an injured miner at a hospital in Hegang City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Nov. 21, 2009. The death toll of a gas outburst accident in a coal mine in Hegang City has risen to 42 while 66 other miners were still missing.

Heavy smoke rises from the entrance to the coal mine in Hegang City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Nov. 21, 2009.

Rescue Team is about to go down the coal mine in Hegang City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Nov. 21, 2009.

A gas explosion in a coal mine in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has killed 42 miners and left 66 missing, said Zhang Jinguang, a spokesman with the rescue headquarters.

He said the gas outburst in Xinxing Coal Mine, owned by the Heilongjiang Longmei Mining Holding Group, in Hegang City, happened 400 meters underground. Rescuers were still searching for the missing.

Pan Xiaowen, deputy director of the Hegang Mining Bureau Hospital, said that the hospital has taken in 29 injured miners from the accident.

"Six of them were seriously injured," he said, adding all of the hospital's 800 medical workers have joined in the rescue work.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang visited the hospital Saturday afternoon, and urged medical workers to do their utmost to save the injured miners.

After President Obama left Beijing Wednesday, I went to see the movie 2012 to learn more about China's growing role in the world and the corresponding emasculation of the American presidency.

For those readers who haven't seen the movie (spoiler alert!), China helps save what remains of humanity from an End of Days flood, building gigantic arks with incredible speed. "Leave it to the Chinese. I didn't think it was possible," says an awestruck refugee from the White House, which by this point has been obliterated along with the fictional black U.S. president.

Off the screen, we are familiar with this story: China saves the world; the U.S. is in decline. It is the popular refrain of the moment. China's economy will rescue us all from the global crisis. The U.S. is limping along, a shadow of its empirical self, relying on the largesse of its banker, China--the dragon rising, the tiger roaring, the panda waking.

This storyline dominated Obama's trip this week, informing seemingly every White House press corps dispatch: The president came to China, won no concessions on anything and didn't land a solid punch on human rights, certainly not compared with his recent predecessors. The balance of power has shifted dramatically.

There is some truth to this picture. Gone are the post-Tiananmen days when China came (sort of) begging to the world--for loans, for the Beijing Olympics, for entry into the World Trade Organization. Now the world is populated with supplicants, both companies and governments, coming to Beijing for Chinese money.

But all that doesn't suddenly make Obama a supplicant to President Hu Jintao. Obama played nice in public on Chinese soil because he is trying out something called diplomacy, and it may just be the right moment for it.

During all those years when the balance of power was heavily in favor of the U.S., China in reality gave up very little in real concessions on the big things, like human rights. China can release a political prisoner or two before a presidential summit, as it has many times, or it can detain and harass some dissidents, as it did this week. But the fundamental authoritarian system obviously remains unchanged, continuing to pressure, intimidate and lock up dissidents, perpetually creating new political prisoners who can be released as bargaining chips someday.

The U.S. still practices "prisoner diplomacy," which is certainly the right thing for the brave individuals it can help. But Obama has made clear he wants to forge a different kind of long-term relationship with China, one that relies less on bargaining chips and more on building good will.

An easy way to do that is to be polite and respectful in your public appearances. Obama could have come to China and wagged his finger at Hu in front of the cameras, saying dramatically, "Mr. Hu, tear down that Great Firewall," as some Chinese netizens wanted him to do. It might have sounded good, but good luck getting much cooperation from China for a long time after that.

In 1998, then-President Clinton made a point of bringing up the 1989 massacre near Tiananmen Square on Chinese national television, in a joint appearance with his host, President Jiang Zemin, who rose to power amid that bloody crackdown. Given that this was the first presidential visit since 1989, Clinton probably made the right move, sending an important signal to Chinese leaders, the Chinese people and the world that the U.S. still makes human rights a priority.

Today the context is different. China has indeed risen and the U.S. is reeling, but more important, the U.S. needs China's help in a world that seems more dangerous now than it did then. Obama does need to talk tough with Hu, especially about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but he may get better results by doing so in private, and I suspect he gave it his best shot Tuesday.

Will this brand of diplomacy work? Maybe not. Former Ambassador to China James Lilley, who died last week, believed that going easy on China in public gained you nothing. Lilley "used to say that you've got to take a tough position and then you engage in tough negotiations," says Jim Mann, author of About Face, a history of U.S.-China relations. Mann, having chronicled many instances of the U.S. having emerged empty-handed from negotiations, isn't persuaded that playing nice in public gets results.

But there's a flip side to the rising China story. Yes, Chinese leaders have a lot more leverage now, but they also have a lot more to lose if the world goes haywire. Obama sees that when he acknowledges China's growing role in global affairs. As he asks for help in the United Nations, possibly soon, with tougher sanctions on Iran, it could start getting harder for Beijing to say no.