Report: China mine blast kills 48
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SHANGHAI, China (Reuters) -- Forty-eight miners were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in China's eastern province of Jiangxi, state media said on Friday, in the latest in a string of mine accidents that have taken thousands of lives this year.
The bodies have been retrieved after the blast at a mine in the city of Fengcheng in Jiangxi late in the morning, news agency Xinhua said. Two workers were also injured, and operations at the mines have been suspended.
The cause of the accident at the state-owned Jianxin Coal Mine, which has a capacity of 600,000 tonnes a year, is being investigated, Xinhua said, adding that senior officials were on their way to the site.
Among these are a member of China's cabinet, the State Council, along with the provincial governor and the provincial head of the Communist Party.
A local mining bureau official in Fengcheng confirmed the explosion to Reuters, but could not provide further details.
A new work safety law and greater efforts to patrol unsafe work sites have failed to stem the number of deaths in Chinese mine accidents so far this year.
Coal mine accidents killed 4,620 miners in the first nine months of this year.
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