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Guangxi Tin Mine Floods, 70 Reported Dead
More than 200 miners are trapped and feared dead in a flooded tin mine in China's southern region of Guangxi, according to report carried by Wenhui Daily on Tuesday, but mine officials said the reports were highly exaggerated.
The official Wenhui Daily said more than 70 bodies had been found and alleged that the mine owners had tried to stop news of the disaster spreading, partly by paying compensation to relatives to buy their silence.
An official with the Longquan Mining Company confirmed there was an accident at the mine on July 16, but he dismissed reports that more than 200 miners were trapped and 70 bodies found.
"There was an accident in which miners dug into an abandoned mine filled with water and a number of people died," the official told reporters.
"We are not sure of the death toll yet but it was impossible that so many people should have been killed," he said.
Miners work in three shifts, 24 hours a day in the 700-metre (2,300-foot) deep tin mine and there were usually between 200 and 300 miners on each shift, he said.
"But it was a huge mine with many pits, which cannot be all flooded," said the official.
Another official at the mine owner's office told reporters there had been a "minor" accident at the mine but declined to give details.
"It was a minor but not a major accident as newspapers had reported," said the official who declined to be identified.
The Wenhui Daily alleged the owners of the mine tried to stop news of the disaster spreading partly by paying a compensation of 20,000 yuan ($2,400) to relatives of each victim to buy their silence.
Source: chinadaily.com.cn
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