One hundred and fifty mine owners in Guangdong Province threatened bloody confrontations with the local government if the authorities failed to pay compensation for blowing up their unlicensed mines following a deadly coalmine flood in which killed 123 miners in early August.

“There’ll be blood shed if the government continues to turn a blind eye to our feelings,” said He Tao, representative of more than 150 pit owners from 32 private mines in Lianzhou city. He Tao, who is also a mine owner, said the owners in Lianzhou were never notified that their mines would be blown up, according to a report of the South China Morning Post. “They bombed our mines without any warning and millions of Yuan worth of underground equipment was destroyed,” the mine owner said.

In the aftermath of the tragic flood at the Daxing Coalmine in Xingning, Meizhou, on 7 August, the Guangdong provincial government order lower level governments to reorganize and start blowing up about 100 unlicensed mines in Meizhou, Shaoguan and Qingyuan counties on 16 August.

But violent battles broke out between government officials and the mine owners, according to a report in the Hong Kong daily newspaper, Wen Wei Po on 21 August: http://slave.wwpnews.net/news.phtml?news_id=CH0508210014&loc=LU&cat=239MZ&no_combo=1 [2])

The local governments’ action resulted in several thousand people petitioning the city government in Shaoguan in Guangdong. Thirteen people were arrested in Qingyuan, also in Guangdong.

According to another report from the Hong Kong newspaper on 22 August, the owners of another 20 mines in Meizhou took a peaceful approach, hiring lawyers to sue the local governments. (See: http://slave.wwpnews.net/news.phtml?news_id=CH0508220027&loc=LU&cat=239MZ&no_combo=1 [3])

The newspaper reported that many mine owners still possessed explosives, despite government moves to seize their reserves.

Sources: South China Morning Post (23 August 2005), Wen Wei Po (21 August 2005, 22 August 2005)

Related articles:

China's Mining Tragedies – Commentary on coalmine safety by CLB Director Han Dongfang, http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/16054 [4]

The Key to Eliminating Coalmine Accidents is to Get Workers Involved in Monitoring Occupational Health and Safety: Some Thoughts after the 7 August Daxing Mine Disaster, http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/16088 [5]

23 August 2005