On May 22nd at 19:29, a gas explosion occurred at the Liushenyu Coal Mine, a subsidiary of the Tongzhou Group in Qinyuan County, Shanxi Province, resulting in significant casualties. According to reports from the official Chinese media, at the time of the explosion, nearly half of the actual workers who went underground were not registered in the system. Some workers revealed that they only received evacuation notices around 10 p.m. Furthermore, discrepancies were found between the mine’s blueprints and the actual layout underground, and rescue teams discovered two hidden passageways.
It was reported by the official Chinese media, as of May 24th, that according to the regulations for entering the mine, miners are required to undergo facial recognition, register with a safety gate, and carry a personnel location card before going underground. The public notice board at the time of the explosion showed that 124 people had entered the mine. However, after verification, it was found that there were actually 247 people underground, with 123 individuals lacking valid information in the system.
In another report by the Xinjing News, journalists visited the mine site and learned from the miners that there were suspected hidden working faces in the coal mine. The upper coal seam, known as the “bright face,” was approved for extraction, while the lower coal seam, referred to as the “dark face,” was illegally mined without approval. Prior to inspections by higher authorities, the mine would temporarily close the unauthorized working faces.
Some miners at the scene stated that those working in the unauthorized areas did not carry their location cards. A worker who had been at the coal mine for over a year mentioned to reporters that even with the location card, it would not function properly in the unauthorized areas.
According to reports from the official media, there is still a section of the flooded passageway near the explosion site that needs to be inspected for over a kilometer. This passage is close to the core explosion site, showing extensive damage to equipment and numerous blast marks inside. Additionally, due to discrepancies between the mine’s blueprints and the actual layout, rescue workers discovered two hidden passages on-site, requiring further investigation.
A miner, Liang Jianwei, from the mine rescue team revealed that he was in another working area about three to four kilometers away from the explosion site. At the time of the explosion, he didn’t notice anything unusual and continued working underground. It wasn’t until after 10 p.m. that he received the evacuation notice and witnessed many of his colleagues collapsed in the passageway. Liang Jianwei emphasized that the portable self-rescue oxygen mask he carried only lasted for seven to eight minutes before running out of oxygen, despite never having used it before. According to regulations, miners must carry a self-rescue device with a rated protection time of no less than 30 minutes.
Furthermore, some miners told the Xinjing News that they were not direct employees of the coal mine but were contracted through a labor dispatch company in Shaanxi. Some outsourced workers mentioned that there were suspicions of wage arrears at the coal mine, with some not receiving payment since the end of February.
As of now, the official figure has revised the number of confirmed fatalities to 82, with 2 individuals still missing and 128 hospitalized for injuries. Previously, the official report stated that the accident had resulted in 90 deaths.