four dead And 49 missing left a mining accident that brought back echoes of a tragic past. The incident occurred at noon on Wednesday. Inner Mongolia the slope of a mountain about 200 meters high, coal mine clear sky at the foot of it. pictures showing massive rock and landslide It dispelled optimism about the fate of fifty.
Some 900 rescue workers and heavy machinery has already arrived in the Alxa region for a seemingly challenging rescue mission. He had to take a break for several hours this morning due to operations. another platoon from mountain crust. One in six survivors explained from the hospital to national television: they heard the noise but they did not have time to complete the evacuation. Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed that no effort should be spared to rescue those affected or to ensure their “life and property”.
The drama that caught the nation’s attention was completed in the final hours, with information that left the company managing the mine in a bad state, and the rescue’s punctual release. last year already fined for various irresponsibility menu including unsafe access roads, improper storage or dangerous education from security chiefs. The suspicions that incompetence were added to the natural disaster are not in vain.
most dangerous in the world
Chinese mines recently had a well-deserved reputation as the world’s most dangerous mines. This accidents It was so routine at the turn of the millennium, with dozens of deaths, that they barely aroused media attention. This mortality Regarding tonne mined in Chinese mines, it was 47 times that of the United States in 2009. The industry was divided into thousands of small mines, illegal mostly and with the disdain of the Olympians security protocols, but protected by local authorities as a source of income and jobs in miserable provinces. This bleak and wild landscape was described by Li Yang in “Blind Hills,” a classic of modern Chinese cinema; In this movie, two criminals killed the hapless loners and forcibly extorted the owner in exchange for his silence by pretending to be an accident in an illegal mine. through bereaved relatives. Years after its premiere, a criminal gang who copied the plot was arrested.
China has reduced the weight of coal in its energy cocktail from 70% to just over 50% in two decades, a tremendous effort in a country with widespread dependency, but it is far from coal-free. Alxa, where the last accident occurred, is a rocky area with no other source than coal.
Occupational Safety Laws
Efforts to reduce the death toll from China’s mines were neither inadequate nor lukewarm. In 2010, with the law, the mine bosses went down to the mines and galleries together with the workers to raise awareness. danger and they will wake up The measure did not prevent mortality It will increase in the coming weeks. Secular Chinese picaresque influenced the law to bargain: some miners automatically promoted to bosses. In several fatal accidents, dozens of miners perished while their alleged owners were consistently and miraculously unharmed, prompting the press to question whether they had superpowers or, more likely, they did not set foot in the mines. China has put the industry in a reasonable order. Those thousands of mines were closed or merged, and job security developments took care of the rest, one of China’s best news and most obscure news. According to official figures, annual deaths have fallen in two decades: nearly 7,000 in 2002, 2,631 in 2009, and 240 last year. Media attention to the Inner Mongolia tragedy suggests that mining accidents in China are no longer daily but newsworthy.