Eight miners were confirmed dead and seven others were injured
when rainstorm-triggered mud-rock flows destroyed their shanties in
southwest China's Yunnan Province, local authorities said on
Thursday.
Dikes protecting a swollen water pool collapsed in heavy rain at
around 1:00 AM on Tuesday near a tungsten mine in Lushui County on
the Sino-Myanmar border, causing a landslide and mud-rock flows
that drowned at least two shanties where the miners lived.
"None of the miners was native of the county," said Wang
Shizong, a senior official in the Lisu Autonomous Prefecture of
Nujiang. Lushui is one of the four counties in the prefecture.
Reports of the accident did not reach the prefectural government
until Thursday morning, as devastating rain and flood also
destroyed communication facilities in some parts of the mountainous
Lushui County.
Wang said all the eight dead bodies had been retrieved and the
seven injured miners were still being treated. Sources with the
hospital said "they were out of danger."
The latest round of geological disasters caused by rainstorms
killed 20 people in Yunnan and affected 900,000 in the four days
between July 30 and August 2, the local government said.
Across the country, 1,279 people died and 239 went missing in
natural disasters in the first seven months of this year, Ministry
of Civil Affairs said earlier this week.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2007)