Illegal Blasting Blamed in Deadly Mine Accident
Investigators concluded that illegal blasting was to blame for an underground flood in a tin mine July 17 that killed 81 miners, the official New China News Agency said.
China’s Cabinet took the unusual step of sending investigators after news reports that local officials had covered up the disaster in the southern province of Guangxi.
More than a dozen officials have been arrested on charges of failing to enforce an order to close the mine for safety reasons.
Reports by a handful of enterprising newspapers said mine executives hired armed thugs and paid off victims’ families in an effort to conceal the accident.
The official death toll is 80, with one more miner missing and presumed dead, the news agency said.
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