Beijing, November 25: Rescuers have found two more bodies in a coal mine in north-eastern China that was hit by a massive gas blast, bringing the confirmed death toll to 106, a mine spokesman told agency on Wednesday.
The new toll makes Saturday’s tragedy in the city of Hegang in northeastern China the deadliest reported accident in the country’s disaster-prone mining industry for more than four years.
Officials had previously confirmed 104 people dead and four missing but a spokesman for the majority state-owned Xinxing mine said two bodies were recovered early this morning.
“We have found two of the missing people,” spokesman Zhang Jinguang told agency.
He said rescuers were still trying to reach the other two missing miners to confirm their fate but the leader of the rescue effort, Zhang Fucheng, had already yesterday that they were “definitely dead”.
The recovery of the two bodies makes the disaster the deadliest in China since 123 people were killed when a mine in southern Guangdong province flooded in August 2005.
Relatives of victims killed and hurt in Saturday’s blast have angrily demanded answers about the disaster as officials said a preliminary probe pointed to poor management at the mine, one of China’s oldest and largest.
—PTI