China Gives Up on 30 Still Feared Buried in Mine

Rescuers have abandoned hope of finding more survivors of a coal mine explosion in north China that may have killed nearly 50 people, and another mine blast in southwest China has left 17 dead, officials said Sunday.

Crews digging by hand at the northern Hulun Beier No. 2 coal mine near China’s border with Mongolia found the bodies of three more victims Saturday, a week after the explosion, said a mine official, who gave just his surname, Li.

“The shaft is completely filled in so they ruled out finding any survivors,” Li said, adding that one of the bodies found was that of a mine safety inspector.

Fourteen bodies have been found, more than 30 people are still missing and 12 survived, all suffering injuries of varying degrees of seriousness, Li said. Authorities have not yet drawn up a final list of those presumed dead, he said.

Authorities had ordered the shaft excavated by hand rather than by machines that could have ignited gas still inside the mine. Rescue efforts were slowed because diggers had to pause frequently as fans drew gas from the mine.

In Yunnan province, an explosion in a coal mine Thursday killed 17, including two of the mine’s co-owners, said a spokesman for the Qujing city government. The Laochonggou mine, like most small, privately run mining outfits, was unlicensed and lacked safety equipment, the New China News Agency reported.