Rescue workers have pulled more than a dozen bodies from a coal mine in northern China, the country’s worst such disaster in years. The blast, which struck a shaft in the city of Xinmi, Henan province, has killed at least 13 miners and left three missing. Officials said the explosion occurred late on Monday in a state-run operation, sending a tremor through a region that has long struggled with dangerous working conditions.
For the families of the miners, there is only grief and anger. “They told us he was safe, but he never came home,” a woman at the mine site told local media, her face streaked with dust and tears. The survivor, a veteran miner in his fifties, described a wall of fire that swept through the tunnels: “I ran, but I could hear the screams behind me.”
Coal mining is the backbone of China’s industrial machine, powering factories and heating homes from the northern plains to the southern boomtowns. But it comes at a cost. In 2022, more than 200 miners died in accidents across the country, government data shows. Trade unions, long constrained by the state, have pushed for tighter safety rules, but enforcement remains patchy. This disaster, the deadliest since a 2019 gas blast in Sichuan that killed 21, has reignited public fury.
In the working-class communities of Henan, where wages for miners hover around 5,000 yuan (about £550) a month, the tragedy cuts deep. “They work in hell for pittances. Now seven kids are fatherless,” wrote one commenter on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, before the topic was scrubbed from trending lists.
The government has ordered an immediate safety sweep of all coal mines in the region, but critics say the real problem is deeper. “We have laws, but profits always come before lives,” said a former safety inspector who spoke on condition of anonymity. China’s coal industry, still the largest in the world, has faced repeated crackdowns after disasters, only for accidents to resume as demand for coal surges. The country’s shift towards renewables has been praised abroad, but at the coal face, the old economy grinds on.
For the families of the dead, there will be compensation, but no comfort. “What is a life worth?” asked the wife of one missing miner. “The company says they will pay us, but who will give me back my husband?” The explosion has become a flashpoint for a regional inequality that leaves mining communities feeling forgotten. In London, ministers speak of a new green future. In Xinmi, women in black wait by the pithead.
As rescue teams dig through rubble, the union chapter in Henan has demanded an independent inquiry. “This is not an accident. This is a failure,” said a local union leader. Across the country, workers in other industries watch closely. The real economy, the one that keeps the lights on, is once again being built on broken backs.
