90 people killed, several injured after gas explosion rips through coal mine in China’s Shanxi province

At least 90 people were killed and several others injured after a gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in China’s northern Shanxi province, marking one of the country’s deadliest mining disasters in recent years.

According to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua, the explosion occurred on Friday evening at the Liushenyu coal mine in Changzhi city while 247 workers were on duty underground.

As of Saturday afternoon, nine miners remained missing, while more than 120 people had been admitted to hospitals. State broadcaster CCTV reported that many of the injured suffered from exposure to toxic gas.

Rescue operations were continuing at full scale, with hundreds of emergency responders and medical personnel deployed at the site. Authorities said the cause of the blast was under investigation.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for all-out efforts to locate the missing miners and ordered authorities to properly manage the aftermath of the tragedy. He also directed officials to conduct a thorough probe into the incident and ensure accountability in line with the law, Xinhua reported. Later, Xinhua said local emergency management authorities had taken the company officials responsible for the mine under custody.

The mine is operated by the Shanxi Tongzhou Coal & Coke Group and has an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tons. China’s National Mine Safety Administration had previously included the mine on a 2024 list of disaster-prone coal mines because of its “high gas content.”

Shanxi, regarded as China’s leading coal-producing province, mined around 1.3 billion tons of coal last year — nearly one-third of the country’s total output. The province, home to roughly 34 million people, employs hundreds of thousands of miners.

A total of 247 workers were underground at the time of the blast.

Of those sent for treatment, 33 had returned home as of 2:00 pm on Saturday.

A total of 755 emergency and medical personnel were dispatched to the site, with rescue efforts still ongoing Saturday afternoon, CCTV reported.

"I lay down for about an hour and woke up by myself. I called the people next to me and got out of the mine together," Wang said, according to CCTV.

China has witnessed several major mining disasters over the years. In February 2023, at least 53 people were killed after an open-pit mine collapsed in the Inner Mongolia region. Earlier, in November 2009, a mine explosion in Heilongjiang province claimed 108 lives, according to state media.

In 2023, a collapse at an open-pit coal mine in the northern Inner Mongolia region killed 53 people.

China is the world's top consumer of coal and the largest greenhouse gas emitter, despite installing renewable energy capacity at record speed.