Fires and explositions

Citation

(2007), "Fires and explositions", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316bac.005

Fires and explositions

4 October 2005 Coal Mine, Baicheng County, China

Rescuers have found two bodies of trapped miners in a coal mine blast that occurred this morning in north-west China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Fourteen miners were trapped and 11 escaped from the disaster after the accident happened at 1045, local time, in Yatuer Colliery, Baicheng County. Rescuers said there is slim hope for the other 12 trapped miners to survive. Rescue work is still under way, but rescuers said another blast is possible because of thick gas density underground. They are taking measures to reduce the density.

4 October 2005 Coal Mine, Henan Province, China

An explosion at one of the Chinese mainland’s top coal mines yesterday left 34 miners dead. The blast occurred early in the morning at the No 2 Coal Mine run by the Hebi Coal Industry (Group) Corp in Henan province. Xinhua said 53 miners were working underground at the time of the blast and 19 managed to escape. The other 34 were confirmed dead. Xinhua reported that Henan party secretary Xu Guangchun and Vice-Governor Shi Jichun had arrived at the scene to direct an investigation into the explosion. Zhao Tiechui, director of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, also arrived in Hebi after the accident. Under regulations issued in July, yesterday’s accident would be classified as a serious industrial accident because it killed more than 30 people. Xinhua reported that the mine started production as early as 1958 and was equipped with “all necessary licences”. The cause of the blast was still under investigation. It hinted the mine was operating within its production capacity, reporting that it produced 518,000 tonnes of coal in the first nine months of the year, compared with 693,000 tonnes last year.

5 October 2005. The bodies of 27 miners caught in a coal mine explosion in central China’s Henan Province have been brought to the surface. The explosion occurred at 0445 on Monday (3 October) in a coal mine belonging to the Henan Hebi Coal Company, with 34 miners confirmed dead, said Feng Shubao, head of the rescue team. A total of 19 miners were injured and then hospitalised, and another two were found safe. Underground rescue work ended at 2000 today. Xu Guangchun, secretary of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China, and vice provincial governor Shi Jichun went to the site to guide the rescue work. Zhao Tiechui, director of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety Supervision, also arrived at the site to direct the rescue efforts, heading an expert team.

22 October 2005 Delta State, Nigeria

Some 60 suspected oil thieves were feared dead in the southern Nigerian state of Delta when fuel pipes punctured by them to siphon fuel were gutted by fire, state media reported yesterday. The oil thieves met their death when the fire, which occurred at about 0100 on Monday (17 October) at a river that crossed the Ekpan village, destroyed ten fiber speed boats and a large number of small wooden barges, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported. Three big barges were also partially destroyed as the fire engulfed the pipelines of the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of state-run oil firm NNPC, it said. Head of the PPMC Lanre Onasagha, said that his department later put out the fire, but could not give the exact number of those burnt in the inferno. “It is impossible to quote as the river has washed away some of the dead by the time the fire was put out, it is hard to tell but many people died.” Nigeria, the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, loses about 100,000 barrels of crude per day to oil theft. As Onasagha explained, the thieves usually came through the river and planted valves on the pipelines, ran hoses through them into the barges and loaded their wares.