From AFP:
Seventeen coal miners have been killed and six others trapped in two gas explosions in China, state media said Monday, in the latest accidents to strike the country’s notoriously dangerous mining sector.
A dozen workers were killed in a blast late Sunday at the Donggou coal mine in the city of Jiexiu in northern Shanxi province, China’s coal-producing heartland, Xinhua news agency quoted local authorities as saying.
The accident happened after the workers “violated a safety rule” by demolishing a wall between the shaft and a disused area of the mine where gas had accumulated, a spokesman for the local work safety administration said.
