Twenty-three Chinese miners were trapped underground in a Chinese coal mine on Friday after a leak of carbon monoxide gas.
The accident happened at around 5:00pm local time.
Rescuers were dispatched to the Diaoshuidong mine in Chongqing, a huge metropolis around 1,800 west of Shanghai, and investigators were working to determine the cause of the accident.
Mining accidents are common in China, where the industry has a poor safety record and regulations are often weakly enforced.
16 workers were killed at another mine on the outskirts of Chongqing in September this year only after a conveyor belt caught fire.
An earlier accident at the same mine claimed the lives of 3 miners in 2013.
In October 2018, 21 miners died in eastern Shandong province after pressure inside a mine caused rocks to fracture and break, blocking the tunnel and trapping the workers. Only one miner was rescued alive.
The same year in December 14 miners were killed in a coal and gas blast at a mine in south-western Guizhou province, seven miners were killed in Chongqing after the connecting segment of a skip broke and fell down a shaft.
Inadequate monitoring of the operations and lack of regulatory enforcement by the Chinese government whose only motto is make money are major contributing factors to the mining accidents.
(With inputs from agencies)
