Nearly fifty workers are still missing China following the collapse of a hill at a coal mine site, which, according to a new preliminary tally, killed six people.

A search and rescue operation involving hundreds of rescuers continues two days after the tragedy in the Inner Mongolia region (north).

Dozens of workers were crushed on Wednesday when much of a 180-meter hill collapsed in a coal pit, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

The operation had to be put on hold due to another landslide on Wednesday night but has now resumed, according to CCTV, which says the death toll now stands at six dead, six injured and 47 missing.

China’s Emergency Ministry said “every effort is being made to find the missing” and urged “not to give up hope that they will be found,” the official Chinese news agency New China reported.

“Saving lives remains the number one priority,” said a ministry official quoted by the agency, while “efforts must be made to prevent secondary disasters.”

CCTV footage shows rescuers in orange suits climbing to the top of a mountain of rubble while construction equipment clears away some of the debris.

“We had just started work” when “we saw how stones began to fall from the top of the hill. More and more fell,” said surviving worker Ma Jianping. “It was decided to evacuate (the mine), but it was too late. The whole hill collapsed,” he added from his hospital bed.

Police investigation

The causes of the tragedy are not yet known. The Xinjing Coal Mining Company, which was said to have operated the mine, did not respond when AFP tried to contact it by phone.

According to a Chinese public television report, a police investigation has already begun. New China reported that the Ministry of Emergency Situations has ordered a “full” investigation.

The area where the tragedy took place is sparsely populated and its economy relies heavily on coal mining.

Mine safety has improved in China in recent years, as has media coverage of disasters; in the past, many such tragedies were hushed up.

But accidents in this sector remain frequent due to the inherent danger of this activity, as well as due to improvisations in some cases related to the implementation of labor protection measures.

At the end of December, 40 people were working in the adits of gold mines when some of them collapsed in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (northwest). 22 managed to get out alive.

In December 2021, two workers stranded in a flooded coal mine in Shaanxi (North) died and 20 others were rescued during the operation.

And in September 2021, after a long and painstaking search, 19 miners were found dead, also stuck in the bowels of the earth in Qinghai province (northwest).

^{Sources: AFP, APE-MPE.}