November 16, 2003	Sunday	Ramazan 20, 1424

BEIJING, Nov 15: The death toll from a gas explosion in a coal mine in southeast China climbed to 49 on Saturday, as a probe began into the incident which is likely to raise new concerns over appalling safety standards in China’s mining industry.

Friday’s blast at the Jianxin Coal Mine in Jiangxi province, which initially trapped 55 people underground, raised the tally of dead in mining accidents in China to 4,100 this year alone.

According to the China News Service, the bodies of 49 miners have been recovered, while seven others were wounded, two of them seriously.

The state-run mine was the only large mechanized coal mine in the southern half of the country and had an annual capacity of 600,000 tons. It was immediately closed after the explosion.

Jiangxi province Chinese Communist Party secretary Meng Jianzhu and provincial governor Huang Zhiquan visited the mine late on Friday, the agency said, adding that five senior central government officials also rushed to the site.

A taskforce overseen by the provincial vice-governor was created to coordinate rescue efforts and to investigate the cause of the accident.

To prevent public disorder around the site, a security team was also created.—AFP