Dozens of people remained missing on Friday after a collapse at a coal mine in northern China killed six, state media reported. The disaster occurred on Wednesday when a 180‑metre‑high slope gave way at an open‑pit mine in the Alxa Left Banner area of Inner Mongolia’s Alxa League. A rescue operation involving hundreds of workers was launched, but emergency efforts were initially hampered by a second landslide later that day.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, 47 people were still unaccounted for, six were recovered alive and another six were found dead. 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,” Xinhua reported on Friday. “Saving lives is still the top priority,” a ministry work team was quoted 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, while excavators worked to clear debris. One rescued worker, Ma Jianping, told CCTV from a hospital bed in the neighbouring Ningxia region, “I had just started work when I saw slag falling down the slope. The situation got worse and worse. We tried to organise an evacuation, but it was too late — the slope came down.” A catheter protruded from his throat.
State media said the collapse affected a wide area of the mine operated by the Xinjing Coal Mining Company, but the cause remains unclear. Police are investigating, and the Ministry of Emergency Management has called for comprehensive investigations.
A video posted on social media by a coal‑truck driver on Wednesday showed rocks cascading down the slope, kicking up clouds of dust that engulfed several vehicles. In the background, a male voice asked, “How many people must be dead from that?” and added, “If I’d lined up over there today, I’d have died in there, too.”
Alxa League, located in China’s arid north, is sparsely populated and relies heavily on mining and other extractive industries. While mine safety in China has improved over recent decades and media coverage of major incidents has increased, accidents still occur frequently in an industry where safety protocols are often lax, especially at rudimentary sites. For context, around 40 people were working underground when a gold mine in northwestern Xinjiang collapsed in December, and in 2021, 20 miners were rescued from a flooded coal mine in northern Shanxi province while two others died.
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