At least eight people have been killed and 38 remain trapped underground following a gas explosion at a coal mine in China, state media reported on Saturday. The blast occurred on Friday evening at the Liushenyu coal mine in Changzhi city, in the northern province of Shanxi, according to official news agency Xinhua. Approximately 247 workers were underground at the time of the explosion , with 201 successfully brought to the surface by early Saturday. Xinhua reported that the cause of the explosion remains under
investigation. Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged authorities to spare no effort in rescuing those still missing, while also calling for a full investigation into the incident and demanding that those responsible be held to account, according to Xinhua. Shanxi province is widely regarded as China’s principal coal mining region. Larger in area than Greece and home to around 34 million people, the province’s hundreds of thousands of miners extracted 1.3 billion tons (1.17 billion metric tons) of coal last year — accounting for nearly
a third of China’s entire output.
China, coal mine, gas explosion, Shanxi, Changzhi, Liushenyu, trapped miners, Xi Jinping