Company executives held accountable for covering up deadly mine blast

Thirty-six people have been held accountable for concealing a deadly explosion at a coal mine in April in Northeast China's Jilin province, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

Twelve of them, mostly executives of the operator of the coal mine Jikun Mining Co, were transferred to judicial authorities, it said in a media release on Saturday. The mine company was fined 5 million yuan ($684,800) for the accident and may be permanently closed.

The accident happened in the afternoon of April 2 at a Jikun-operated coal mine in Baishan city. It left four workers dead and another four injured. The direct economic loss it caused reached almost 10.2 million yuan.

Instead of reporting the accident to local authorities, the ministry said, the company chose to carry out rescue operations with its own employees, and then took a series of actions to conceal the casualties.

The Jikun coal mine sealed off the area where the accident happened, and deleted all accident-related video surveillance data, the ministry said.

After transporting the bodies to four different crematoriums, officials with the coal mine reached a compensation agreement with the families of the deceased.

The company eventually managed to have two of the bodies cremated by illegally purchasing death certificates from one of the mortuaries, the release stated.

It also misled officials from local emergency management authorities when they went to investigate the accident on April 3 following several tips from the public, the ministry noted.

Investigators questioned 52 workers, who were in their posts during the daytime on April 2. All of them, however, denied there was any accident, the release continued. Officials failed to find any clues about the accident after checking the video data.

The truth of the incident eventually surfaced after local authorities established on April 13 a joint investigation team consisting of members from the local public security and emergency management departments.

Under mounting pressure, three executives, including the coal mine's head Li Yonghai, turned themselves in to the public security bureau on the same day as the joint investigation team was set up. Wang Haoming, an investor in the coal mine, followed their footsteps and handed himself in on the second day.

The release said 10 of the 12 people transferred to local judicial authorities are from Jikun Mining Co.

The other two are the director of outpatient services at a local hospital that received the four injured workers from the accident, and the head of the mortuary who issued the fake death certificates, it said, without disclosing their names.

Another eight executives from the mining company were revoked of their job qualification certificates, the release added.

Most of the other 15 punished were officials in posts concerning work safety supervision. The head of the work safety administration of Wangou township, where the Jikun coal mine is located, was removed from his post.

The media release said the coal mine didn't have the necessary work safety permit for its operation. Aside from the penalties for the accident, the company will also have its coal confiscated and all equipment it used in the mining operation.

The local emergency management authority sent a proposal to the Baishan city government to have the coal mine shut down.