Coal mining blasts devastate China

XINMI, China - Desperate to know their loved ones' fates, grieving relatives scuffled with guards Friday at the scene of China's worst mining accident of 2004 as rescue workers pulled more bodies from a mine shaft choked with poison gas.

At least 66 workers were killed in a blast at Daping Mine in the central Chinese province of Henan. Eighty-two others were missing Friday night and feared dead.

An explosion tore through the shaft Wednesday as 446 miners were working, sending the gas density in the mine's atmosphere rocketing to 40 percent in less than three minutes, the official Xinhua Agency said.

Most of the dead miners suffocated on the toxic gas that spewed from the coal bed and ignited, officials said.

The accident comes amid a safety crackdown on China's coal mines - the world's deadliest. Each year, thousands of deaths are reported in explosions, underground floods and other accidents, often blamed on negligence, lack of safety equipment and poor ventilation.

A government report released Thursday said 4,153 people were killed in accidents in coal mines in the first nine months of this year - a drop of 13 percent from the same period last year.

Local officials have said that chances of survival for the missing miners are "quite slim."

Also Friday, rescuers searched for 29 miners who were missing after a shaft in the northern city of Wu'an in Hebei province flooded. The accident occurred Wednesday when 63 people were working, according to the State Work Safety Administration's Web site.

Another 12 miners were killed in a mine explosion in the southwestern region of Chongqing, the site said, while in southern Guizhou province, five workers died and eight were missing in a separate mine blast.

Sun Huashan, deputy administrator of the safety administration, said the disaster in Henan highlighted "many problems" in enforcing safety standards and the pressure to raise coal production in energy-short China.

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