153 TRAPPED IN CHINA COAL MINE

RESCUERS IN CHINA STRUGGLE
TO FREE 153 TRAPPED MINERS

BEIJING (NYTimes.com) - Rescue workers in northern China struggled Monday to reach 153 miners trapped a day earlier when water gushed into a warren of tunnels dug for a new underground coal field. Government officials say an additional 108 men scurried to safety as the mine began flooding Sunday afternoon. A preliminary investigation suggests that miners may have broken through to an adjacent subterranean pit where water had been accumulating, according to the official Xinhua news service. Television news broadcasts on Monday showed workers feeding tubes into a shaft in an effort to drain the flooded mine, part of a network of tunnels being built at the Wangjialing Coal Mine, a 42-square-mile coal field in Shanxi Province that was scheduled to begin production later this year. Most of the trapped were migrant workers from Shanxi, Hebei, and Guizhou provinces. President Hu Jintao ordered that emergency workers “spare no effort” to save the miners.

Official reports showed the country’s vice premiere, Zhang Dejiang, at the scene of the accident, which is about 500 miles southwest of Beijing. The accident is a familiar tale in China’s coal-producing heartland, where safety standards often take a back seat to production. Although Chinese officials say the number of mining-related deaths has dropped by half in the past decade, 2,631 coal miners were killed by gas leaks, explosions or flooded tunnels last year. If rescue efforts fail, it would be the deadliest accident since 2007, when 172 miners died in a flooded coal mine in Shandong Province. The worst events tend to occur in Shanxi, which produces 30 percent of the nation’s coal and has a reputation for illegal and poorly regulated mines.


Many mine accidents and the subsequent cover-ups, usually occur because the main concern for these companies, are economic profits and coal production. They are not interested in improving safety standards for the benefit of the poor workers.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

At the present moment human society is overly influenced by the mode of passion, and consequently people are engaged in working in big factories. They forget how distressful it is to live in such places. In Bhagavad-gītā such activities are described as ugra-karma, that is, distressful activities. Those who utilize the energies of the worker are called capitalists, and those who actually perform the work are called laborers. ... The result is that there is always a distressful situation.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam”
Purport in Canto 4 - Chapter 29 - Verse 28.