61 Killed in Coal Mine Explosion in Northern Japan

A coal mine explosion half a mile underground killed 61 men in northern Japan, and rescue teams have recovered all of the bodies, police reported today.

They said the bodies of the last 12 victims were brought out of the mine at 7 a.m., about 15 hours after a blast so powerful that it blew mine cars from their tracks and hurled workers to their deaths against the walls. Methane gas was believed to be responsible for the Friday explosion.

Search teams had worked through the night as mine operators tried to force air into the tunnels, said Shin Kamiya, manager of Mitsubishi Coal Mining Co.’s Minami Oh Yubari mine on the northern island of Hokkaido, about 560 miles north of Tokyo.

Kamiya said 336 miners were in the mine at the time of the explosion, but most got out safely within minutes. Police reported 22 were injured, seven seriously.

It was the second disaster to befall a major Japanese coal mine in three weeks.

On April 25, a gas explosion killed 11 miners and injured four in a coal mine on the island of Takashima in southwestern Japan. That mine also belonged to Mitsubishi Coal Mining.

Friday’s blast was centered near two diagonal shafts about 2,640 feet below sea level, Akira Suzuki, a government mine safety official in Sapporo, said. A 70-member rescue team, carrying oxygen masks and food, searched for the victims trapped about 2 1/2 miles from the closest entrance.

The mine produces about 1 million tons of coal a year, and employs about 2,100 miners, a company official said.