China Mine Explosion Death Toll Rises to 166

Zhao Yanmei, 24, sobbed uncontrollably. Gasping for air, the baby-faced mother tried to make sense of it all: Why did it have to be her husband? Why was he on the night shift again? Why was she faced with raising their 3-year-old son without a father?

On Sunday, a gas explosion swept through Chenjiashan mine here in Shaanxi province, about 450 miles southwest of Beijing. This morning, the official New China News Agency confirmed that 103 miners who were trapped as deep as five miles underground were dead, including Zhao’s 32-year-old husband, Ding Aituan.

With 63 confirmed dead earlier, the toll of 166 made this China’s worst mining disaster in four years.

Since the blast, Zhao regularly had gone to the area in front of the state-owned mine complex where hundreds of people gathered in clusters to talk quietly, comfort one another and wait for word about missing relatives.

She kept hope as long as she could. But she was also realistic. Ambulances that raced by Sunday and Monday sat idly by the dusty roadside Tuesday. China’s record on rescuing trapped miners didn’t leave much room for optimism.

The country’s economy is booming. But much of that prosperity is being built on the backs of millions like Ding. Behind the seemingly endless supply of consumer goods arriving on Western shelves at two-for-one prices are people struggling on survival wages under bleak conditions to produce the cheap energy Chinese factories need.

China, which produces 35% of the world’s coal, accounts for 80% of coal mining fatalities, according to government figures -- 4,153 deaths were reported in the first nine months of 2004. Experts say corruption, poor oversight and the fact that it’s often cheaper to pay off a death claim than invest in safety equipment contribute to the country’s dubious record.

“China needs to do a better job reflecting the real value of life,” said Hu Xingdou, economics professor with Beijing Science and Technology University.

Sunday’s explosion was not even the most recent. This morning, 13 miners were killed by a blast at a coal mine in Guizhou Panxian, and three were missing, officials said.

Before Sunday’s blast, word in the mine was that Chenjiashan bosses manipulated gas-detection equipment -- a modern version of the canary in the shaft -- to avoid triggering alarms and work stoppages that could undercut production, several miners said.

Fires were raging in the mine for a week before Sunday’s blast, said one miner, who asked not to be identified.

On Nov. 23, some supervisors who descended into the shaft to check a fire quickly retreated because they had trouble breathing. But they refused to let the miners leave, forcing them to fight the fire for 12 hours even though they were not trained.

A few days later, the mine bosses divided the workers into firefighting, day shift and night shift crews to meet production goals. “This meant the usual five hours devoted to maintenance and repairs was reduced to three,” the miner said, citing this as a possible factor in Sunday’s explosion.

Mine officials could not be reached for comment.

Nor did government oversight seem to help. In April 2001, an accident in the same mine killed more than 35 workers, drawing attention from the government. But whenever inspectors fined the mining company for safety violations, the penalties were deducted from miners’ wages to maintain profits, workers and family members said.

The miners said they didn’t have much choice. If they left, there were more farmers to fill their shoes.

“Workers are at the bottom of the barrel, the ones sacrificing everything,” said Yu Zhanyin, 53, who lost a leg during a shaft collapse in the 1980s.

President Hu Jintao had urged rescuers to do everything possible to save miners trapped in Chenjiashan even as his government mounted a campaign to close smaller, accident-prone mines.

In a nation where it often takes days for bad news to leak out, Beijing publicized Sunday’s incident almost immediately.

“The central government believes a more open media will help pressure mine owners,” said Li Xiguang, a former coal miner and now a professor at Beijing’s Qinghua University.

That’s small comfort to Zhao, who cooked dinner for her husband, Ding, late Saturday night and said goodbye as he went off to start his midnight shift. He looked haggard, and she asked why he was working the night shift two consecutive weeks. He said his pay would be docked if he complained.

On his way out, their son, Ding Jie, called to his father to buy him some zhenzhenbang, his favorite candy, then asked for a hug and a kiss, a rare request. Zhao said the image of her husband hugging their son haunted her because it was their last embrace.

At 8 a.m. Monday, a relative called to ask whether Ding Aituan was working the overnight shift. When Zhao confirmed that he was, the relative hung up without saying more. A couple of hours later, Zhao’s sister-in-law arrived and told her the bad news: There’d been a big explosion, and Ding was missing.

Long before her husband was trapped in the mine, Zhao said, he was trapped by circumstances. There aren’t many jobs in this region of scraggly hills in the heart of China’s Coal Belt. After leaving school, he reluctantly followed his two older brothers and countless friends down the shaft.

Although some of the 3,400 employees at the mine are lucky enough to work above ground maintaining equipment and doing other jobs, Ding was assigned to some of the most unsafe parts of the mine, for some of the lowest wages -- about $48 a month.

His wife, friends and family said Ding was the kind of person -- gentle, kind, honest and considerate -- who couldn’t say no, the type whose bosses quickly identify as a soft touch.

For more than a decade, he worked more than his share of night shifts. Then early Sunday morning, his luck ran out.

Like most coal mines in China, the company had increased production quotas sharply in recent months to cope with soaring winter demand, electricity shortages, and a recent decision by Beijing to use more coal after oil prices rose.

Reports circulated through the mine that bosses who met those quotas were earning big bonuses. Management seemed to be more eager than usual to dock wages for workers’ tardiness or other small infractions, resulting in even lower pay. Some months, these fines could eat up half a worker’s pay.

Ding and Zhao would discuss safety concerns, although he often downplayed the danger to avoid frightening her.

He also spoke to his sister, Ding Aixia, 44. His gangly 5-foot-9 inch frame made it hard to move quickly in the narrow shafts. “He often told me how dreadful it was down there and how much harder times were getting,” Ding Aixia said.

Zhao said they would argue, and she’d accuse him of being too soft. But she also loved that gentle side, the inability to say no that ultimately cost him his life.

Ding had mulled over the idea of finding another job. But, “you need connections and hundreds of dollars in ‘gifts’ to get a new job,” Zhao said.

Virtually everyone in this small community knew someone who died.

Some parents have lost three sons to the hulking complex still adorned with faded slogans from the glory days of state planning: “Love the Mine,” they declare in large white letters. “Devote Your Life to the Mining Industry.”

The people who gathered in the town’s restaurants directed resentment at mine bosses.

“They have villas outside town and don’t pay miners peanuts,” said the relative of one miner later declared dead.

“They make $36,000 in bonuses alone while miners only make at most $250 for a whole month,” another said. Residents said they hoped bosses would be punished.

Zhao longed to see her husband. Her son kept telling her not to cry.

She thinks about the standard compensation for mine casualties, about $2,500. “Is that all that a human life is worth? They don’t even care about people’s lives,” she said before he was declared dead.

“If by some miracle he makes it out alive, even if we have to eat bark in the mountains, somehow, anyhow, I’ll make him quit.”

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Yin Lijin in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.