Reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York has it that dozens of people remained missing following a collapse at a coal mine in northern China that killed six.
China’s ministry of emergency management urged ‘all-out efforts to search for the missing personnel without delay, and not to lose hope of finding them’, state news agency Xinhua reported Friday.
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‘Saving lives is still the top priority,’ Xinhua quoted a ministry work team as saying, adding that ‘efforts should also be made to prevent secondary disasters’.
Footage from CCTV showed rescue workers in orange overalls and yellow helmets dwarfed by a mountain of rust-coloured rubble, and excavators working to clear some of the debris.
‘I had just started work when I saw slag falling down the slope. The situation got worse and worse,’ a rescued worker named Ma Jianping told CCTV.
‘We tried to organise an evacuation, but it was too late — the slope came down,’ he said from a hospital bed in the neighbouring Ningxia region, a catheter protruding from his throat.
State media reported the collapse had affected a ‘wide area’ of the mine operated by the Xinjing Coal Mining Company. It was not clear what caused the collapse.
CCTV said police were investigating, while Xinhua on Friday said the ministry of emergency management had called for comprehensive investigations.