More deadly landslides - China and El Salvador

More than 20 people have been killed in Shanxi province in northern China by a landslide that engulfed six makeshift homes where migrant coalminers were living close to a mine.

Shanxi is the centre of China’s mining industry which is one of the most dangerous in the world. More than 3,000 workers died in accidents last year. The cause of the latest disaster is being investigated.

Heavy rain is being blamed for the landslide that buried the farming town of Verapaz in El Salvador last week, killing at least 130 people. Boulders – some weighing more than a ton – littered the streets, dead cows were found on rooftops, and half-buried cars stuck out of the mud.

The town, which is about 30 miles from the capital San Salvador, lies on the slopes of a volcano. See also my blogs of April 17 and November 12.

Chinese mining disasters

At least 73 miners have been killed, and dozens more are trapped underground after an explosion at the Tunlan colliery in China’s main coal-producing province of Shanxi. More than 100 injured miners have been taken to hospital.

China is the world’s biggest producer of coal, with perhaps 5 million people working in the industry, but it also has the worst accident rate. Last year, the official death toll in the industry was 3,200, but many believe the true figure is much higher. In 2007, a Hongkong-based human rights organisation said it could be as many as 20,000.

The worst mining disaster in history happened in the Honkeiko colliery in the Chinese region of Manchuria in 1942, while it was occupied by the Japanese. An explosion killed more than 1,500 miners, about a third of those working in the pit at the time.