The 2007 Shandong coal mine flood was an incident that occurred on August 17, 2007 in
Xintai
Xintai () is a county-level city in the central part of Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It is the easternmost county-level division of the prefecture-level city of Tai'an and is located about to the southeast of downtown Tai'an.
H ...
,
Shandong
Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region.
Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...
,
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, when heavy rain caused a river to burst a
levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually soil, earthen and that often runs parallel (geometry), parallel to ...
creating a flood into two mine shafts. By 8:50 am (1:50GMT), the mine was inundated underwater.
[English Aljazeera.]
English Aljazeera
" ''Chinese miners trapped by floods.'' Retrieved on 2008-09-08.
Damages and casualties
More than 200mm of rain had fallen in Xintai, causing a 50-metre breach of a levee of the
Wen river
Dawen River () or River Dawenhe is a river in Shandong Province, China.
The main branch of the river originates from Yiyuan, flows through Xintai, Laiwu, and merges with Chaiwen River at Dawenkou (, it literally translates into river mouth of ...
. Water poured into the 860-metre deep pit at the Huayuan mine, quickly overwhelming the mine's pumps.
The 172 miners were trapped in a 3,000-foot-deep mine shaft when a mine operated by the Huayuan Mining Co.
[LA times.]
LA times
" ''Hope dim for Chinese miners.'' Retrieved on 2008-09-15. Nine others were also missing, in a nearby mine run by a different company. None of the 181 miners, living or dead, were recovered from the two mines after the accident.
The Huayuan mine was flooded with an estimated 12 million cubic metres of water. If all six available pumps were used around the clock they could pump out about 120,000 cubic metres of water a day. But only four were operational. Unofficially, experts say that it would take almost 100 days to drain the water inside the mine.
[Asianews.it.]
Asianews.it
" ''Beijing admits Xintai mining accidents were completely avoidable.'' Retrieved on 2008-09-14.
Aftermath
An official at China.com.cn discussed the fact that signs of flooding had appeared in advance prior to the incident, and that the "disaster was completely avoidable."
On September 6, the Shandong provincial government issued a statement citing scientists who said that none of the miners would be able to make it out alive after that amount of time underground.
[Xinhuanet.com.]
" ''Beijing admits Xintai mining accidents were completely avoidable.'' Retrieved on 2008-09-15.
See also
*
Coal power in China
China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world. It is also the largest user of coal-generated electricity, with over a thousand coal-fired power stations. The share of coal in the energy mix declined during the 2010s, fall ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shandong Coal Mine Flood, 2007
Shandong mine flood
Shandong mine flood
Environmental disasters in China
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
2007 floods
Shandong
Coal mining disasters in China