Rescue workers prepare to get into the coal mine to look for survivors in north China's Shanxi Province, Feb. 22, 2009. More than 70 miners have died after a coal mine blast occurred at about 2: 00 a.m. Sunday at the Tunlan Coal Mine of Shanxi Coking Coal Group in Gujiao City near Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province, while rescuers are pulling out the trapped from the shaft, according to a rescuer at the site. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Photo Gallery>>>

    TAIYUAN, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Three coal mine officials were removed from their posts in the wake of a gas blast that killed 74miners in north China's Shanxi Province Sunday, said a source from the State Administration of Work Safety Monday.

    The officials were said to be the chief of state-owned Tunlan coal mine Yin Gencheng, the engineer-in-chief and a deputy chief in charge of work safety.

    The accident occurred at around 2:20 a.m. Sunday, while 436 miners were working underground at the Tunlan Coal Mine of Shanxi Coking Coal Group in Gujiao City, about 50 km from Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

    The blast also injured 114 miners, including 26 seriously. Most of the injured showed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to rescuers.

    The Shanxi Provincial Coal Industry Social Security Bureau has set aside 28.06 million yuan (4.1 million U.S. dollars) as imprest of occupational injury insurance payouts for the blast victims, a bureau official said Monday.

    The children of miners killed in the blast would receive maintenance payments until they are 18. They would get an additional 3,000-5,000 yuan every year as allowance when they study in college.

    The families of the dead would each receive at least 200,000 yuan in compensation, officials with the rescue headquarters said at a press conference Monday.

    Twenty-one of the 26 seriously injured miners were stable, said Wang Jun, deputy director of the Shanxi Provincial Department of Health, Monday.

    Five others who were previously described as critical were also recovering, as three of them were clearly improving and the vital signs of the other two were stable Monday morning.

    The five miners have been transferred to the People's Hospital of Shanxi Province and the No. 2 Hospital affiliated to Shanxi Medical University, both in Taiyuan.

    Xiao Chuanshi, president of the No. 2 Hospital, said the injured were expected to make a full recovery within three weeks.

Top leaders urge all efforts to rescue workers in coal mine blast


　BEIJING, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday called for all efforts to rescue the miners trapped or injured in the coal mine blast in north China's Shanxi Province.

    As of 6 p.m., 74 people were confirmed dead from the accident which occurred early Sunday morning at the Tunlan Coal Mine of Shanxi Coking Coal Group.

Death toll in north China coal mine blast jumps to 74 


    GUJIAO, Shanxi, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in north China's coal mine blast rose to 74 as of 6 p.m. Sunday after one more body was retrieved from the shaft, the rescue headquarters said.

    The headquarters did not specify how many bodies were found in the mine shaft, only saying the fatalities included bodies found by rescuers in the mine and workers who died in hospital care.

Medical workers prepare to treat survivors in north China's Shanxi Province, Feb. 22, 2009. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Photo Gallery>>>

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