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#1623 From: "liming_cq" <liming_cq@...>
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:30 am
Subject: Inflatable partition for underground fire fighting
liming_cq
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Hello,

I am looking for inflatable partition devices for fire fighting with
foam generator in underground mines. This device can temperately
isolate smoke-filled area from fresh air area so that the foam
equipment in the fresh air area can inject foams into smoke-filled
area through this device. Would you please let me know if you know
the similar products? Thanks

Regards,


Li Ming

#1624 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:55 am
Subject: Zarqawi: the new bin Laden
usmra
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Zarqawi: the new bin Laden
October 17, 2004 - 12:30PM
The Sun-Herald

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi either claims or is blamed for every atrocity in Iraq from suicide bombings to the brutal beheading of hostages. Paul McGeough reports on the new Osama.

While the world focused on Osama bin Laden as the No. 1 fomenter of terrorism, another more hands-on, in-the-field jihadist was being shaped.

Now Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi either claims or is blamed for every atrocity in Iraq from suicide bombings to the brutal beheading of hostages. His ultimate goal? A bloody - but purifying - civil war.

We're still in the chalky hills of Amman. But driving north, the desert chic of the Jordanian capital quickly fades to become the cinder-block grime of a sprawling industrial quarter. Here, helpful locals urge us to keep the car doors locked - even as we drive around. There are only a few roadside hawkers - their grapes, watermelons and luscious figs stewing in the midday sun; and a couple of katip men are idle - they sit under faded calico umbrellas with battered typewriters on rickety card tables, waiting for illiterates who'll pay them to write a letter or fill out a form.

Any doubt we've crossed into a different place and space is expunged when Bilat, the driver, slows his clapped-out Kia minibus to negotiate a ruptured and flooding sewer line. As a foul odour fills the bus, he jokes: "Ah, French perfume..." A few hundred metres down the hill, after a threadbare mosque that has none of the customary glitter of the well-heeled end of town, and beyond idle factories and fences festooned with litter that couldn't get away, he formally declares: "This Al-Zarqa ... the home of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi."

The US has a $25 million ($A35 million) bounty on Zarqawi's head. And Washington now bills him as the spearhead of the bloody insurgency that is wrecking virtually all efforts by the US military and the Washington-backed interim regime in Baghdad to assert authority or to impose security in "liberated" Iraq. He has strewn fear throughout a war-numbed nation and a nervy and restless foreign community in Baghdad as grainy videos reveal him personally hacking off the heads of terrified hostages - reading aloud religious tracts and threatening more death.

Zarqawi and the small army he calls Tawhid Wa'Al-Jihad have expanded their area of operations, taking control of vital thoroughfares in the capital and forcing swaths of country to be declared no-go zones for US forces. At the same time, Zarqawi wrestles with nationalist Iraqi fighters for control of the insurgency's post-Saddam agenda. American crackdowns have little success in curbing the crisis.

Since Zarqawi bounced out of relative obscurity last year, he has been linked to an appalling litany of violence. The attacks range from the horribly grotesque, like the beheading of the Jewish-American businessman Nick Berg in May 2004 which he celebrated by releasing a video titled Sheik Abu Musab Zarqawi Slaughters an American Infidel, to a barrage of audacious car and truck-borne suicide bombings that have killed a high-profile United Nations envoy, dozens of prominent religious and political figures and hundreds of ordinary Iraqis. Zarqawi has masterminded or inspired the capture of more than 130 foreign hostages in Iraq. Last month the world was forced to hold its breath as two Americans and a British hostage pleaded for their lives, before Zarqawi himself, according to CIA analysis of the web footage, callously cut the throats of the struggling Americans. Then he roughly decapitated them, holding the heads up for the cameras - and, with a nonchalant twist of the knife, gouged out one of the victim's eyes.

While a separate insurgency group dangled the lives of two young women hostages from Italy - they were subsequently released - Zarqawi imposed a calculated silence on the fate of the Briton who had been snatched with the Americans - 62-year-old Kenneth Bigley. It was broken a week later only by the release of another harrowing video of a distraught Bigley, shackled and kneeling in a cage as he pleaded with Prime Minister Tony Blair to spare his life. But Zarqawi knew that he was filling the media space in Britain and around the world with bestial but cost-effective propaganda that would work for him on two levels.

Zarqawi has his own sophisticated PR machine, which talks him up as the single cause of all that is violent in the new Iraq - just as much as the Washington spin doctors do. The Zarqawi profile is so great now that it ceases to matter how many of the charges against him are true; what does matter is that he has become an inspirational figurehead for an insurgency army of as many as 20,000 fighters that has been able to dig in, establishing operational practices and lines of funding and communication for what many observers fear will be Iraq's descent into a bloody civil war.

The most troubling aspect of Zarqawi's arrival on the battlefield is that he has the determination and ideological baggage needed to manipulate all sides to start an all-out war.

Any quest to discover Zarqawi's past is not the story of just one person. It is also a journey into a fearsome philosophy that is being used to breach the Islamic convention that Muslims should not act violently towards each other.

It is called the Salafi movement, the credo of the fundamentalist Islamic warmongers that provides the religious sanction without which violence could not be perpetrated in the name of Islam. Salafi thought might have languished ineffectually on the fringes of world affairs had not the US decided in the 1980s to pour billions of dollars in arms and support into an earlier but very different "coalition of the willing" - an informal, pan-Arabist army of volunteers that fought to end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

That 10-year-long struggle was justified religiously on the grounds that all Muslims had a duty to repel the infidel Soviet invasion of Muslim Afghanistan. But it was a further refinement by Zarqawi's prison-cell mentor, the 44-year-old Abu Mohammed Al-Maqdisi, that made it possible to encourage the veteran Arab warriors from Afghanistan to gird themselves for other battles; and it was in Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden and Zarqawi learned the undeniable truth of asymmetric warfare - that a bunch of uneducated youths armed only with credit cards and box-cutters could take the modern US empire by the throat; that a few cars loaded with fertiliser could stop that empire's technologically sophisticated army in its tracks.

Hardly anyone knows what Zarqawi really looks like. The US "wanted" posters list his height and weight as unknown. The same old passport-like pictures are pasted up: round face, furtive eyes, stubbled chin and beanie-like cap. By many accounts, he is not especially bright, but he wears his emotions close to the surface. Accounts of his early days suggest he is prone to tears, sometimes in discussions about God.

Much of what is known about him comes from the prisoners who shared a Jordanian cell block with him for five years after he was convicted in 1994 of plotting to overthrow the regime of King Hussein. A former inmate from Swaqa Prison told me Zarqawi burst into sobs when he rebuked him for beating up another inmate. Yousef Rababa, a teacher of Islamic religious studies who served time for plotting a bombing mission in Israel, said the only softness he saw in Zarqawi was towards his mother.

In a reception room in his comfortable middle-class home high on one of the rolling hills over which the Jordanian capital is draped, Rababa said that when his mother visited, Zarqawi would shower, dress in his cleanest clothes and wear cologne. Sitting in an adjacent cubicle, the teacher eavesdropped on some of the mother-son meetings: "He was always seeking her forgiveness and blessings; he'd wish her happiness, too."

Zarqawi's acts of violence in the past six months have taken him into the lounge rooms of the world. But nobody, least of all the Americans, is sure of where he hides in Iraq. It seems implausible that he would base himself in Falluja, the Sunni city that has refused to surrender to US force. But late last month the London-based daily Al-Hayat published an interview with an unnamed Zarqawi associate who claimed to have met Zarqawi there "recently". The US insists he is there, too, but there have been no confirmed sightings and constant and powerful bombing of what the US describes as Zarqawi safe houses has so far failed to curb the rate of insurgency attacks, to turn up a body, or to prompt a claim for Washington's ransom from anyone who might have tipped them off to Zarqawi's whereabouts.

It is noon and the backstreets are virtually deserted. Zarqawi's family still lives in an area called Al-Kasara, where the dusty, mottled sprawl of Al-Zarqa runs abruptly into the wall of an abandoned quarry on one side and an old cemetery on another. In the street where the young Zarqawi kicked a ball, a child labours to get a kite aloft. But there is no response to my banging on a heavy metal gate set in a wall that surrounds the family's drab two-storey house. There's a satellite TV dish and a lonely olive tree. Across the way, rubbish spills from a dumpster.

A few of the neighbours straggle towards the Al-Falah mosque for prayers - this was where Zarqawi spent much of his time. "They don't talk," a passer-by volunteers about the family, and others explain why. Zarqawi's brother-in-law, Salih Al-Hami, had spoken publicly a few weeks earlier and still had the bruises from a doing over by Jordanian security service officers.

A circumspect shopkeeper, who gave his name as Abu Mouad S'waha, says the mukhabarat - the collective name by which Arabs refer to all security agents - had been making more visits to the area as Zarqawi's activities in Iraq drew more attention, and were warning people not to talk to outsiders about Zarqawi. "They think they can shut down the story," the shopkeeper says.

The locals are cautious - the shopkeeper the only one to give his name - but they all talk: some worry that the character beaming back from Iraq by news satellite is so big that he must be a creation of US propaganda; but all, it seems, want visitors to acknowledge their pride in Zarqawi. "How did such a normal guy become so big?" asks a man outside the mosque. "We pray for him, because he is one of us," another with a bushy white beard tells me.

And despite the pervasive reticence, they offer up the essentials of the Zarqawi story, which varies from "local boy makes good" to "who'd have thought he had it in him?"

Some of them see great symbolism in the proximity of the local cemetery to Zarqawi's home. As a restless teenager he emerged as a hard-drinking, knife-wielding tough who was not greatly interested in school or religion.

His father was the local muktar, an unofficial community counsellor from whom people sought advice. But his father's early death thrust added responsibility on the young Zarqawi. One of the locals explained for

Good Weekend: "The only way to survive in Al-Zarqa was to be tough [and] he had a duty to protect his family, especially his sisters." Another says that one night in his teens, Zarqawi drank so much that he fainted - and that when he came to, he vowed: "Never again."

The young Zarqawi worked for a time in the municipal electrical service. He soon drifted out of that job, but mystery surrounds just how he ended up in Afghanistan in 1989. For years, the Saudi government had been paying young Arabs to fight in Afghanistan, but by then the Soviets were in retreat from a conflict that had become their Vietnam. There are reports that Zarqawi fought to drive the Russians out of the eastern city of Khost, near where bin Laden would later locate some of his training camps. But others refer to him only as an aspiring writer for a magazine called Al Bonian al Marsous, "The Strong Wall". They say he listened closely, but kept to himself.

Before he was silenced by the Jordanian authorities, Salih Al-Hami, Zarqawi's brother-in-law, told the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera that Zarqawi had been a sponge for Salafi literature in Afghanistan, but had been reluctant to join any of the battlefront groups - particularly Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

Zarqawi returned to Jordan in 1992, confused by emerging signs of a protracted civil war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Arab triumph that Salafi philosophers had promised would deliver an Islamic nirvana. Some who observed him at the time thought he was ripe for the hardline speeches of Al-Maqdisi, the Salafi scholar who also was from Jordan.

These two had met in Pakistan and together they set up Beit Al-Imam, a help group for fighters returning to Jordan from Afghanistan. It was hardly surprising that many of the fighters were looking for a new cause: bin Laden found his in Saudi Arabia - in Riyadh's deepening military reliance on the US; and for Al-Maqdisi and Zarqawi it was the social and economic malaise threatening to sink Jordan in the wake of the 1990-'91 Gulf Crisis.

The journalist Abdullah Abu Rumman soon detected a strident new message in Jordanian discourse: "Al-Maqdisi's speeches were full of fire. He condemned the government and he branded the Sunni clerics as instruments of the regime; he called them taghout - this was the first time we'd heard this old word used to describe Muslims as infidels."

A Kuwait-born Palestinian, Al-Maqdisi's real name is Isam Al-Barqawi. He studied physics and chemistry in Baghdad as a young man, but abandoned his course to go to Medina, in Saudi Arabia, to take up the religious studies that would shape his Taliban brain.

His two wives still live at Rusaifeh, in the urban corridor between Al-Zarqa and Amman. In his absence, his house is said to run much as Zarqawi's does - the children are barred from attending school and are made to study only religious texts at home. TV is forbidden. And when Al-Maqdisi was hauled before Jordan's State Security Court recently, there were audible gasps when, brimming with pride and emotion, he announced that his 14-year-old son had died fighting with the insurgents in Iraq.

In 1994, Al-Maqdisi was jailed amid rising fears among officials in Amman over the growing band of followers inspired by his rants against the regime. On being convicted of plotting the overthrow of the Jordanian government, Al-Maqdisi was sent down for 15 years. His jailing would be the making of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who went into the slammer with him - on the same charges.

Swaqa Prison sits alone, on the edge of a highway that cuts like a ribbon of steel through the Jordanian desert, running south from Amman to the Red Sea port of Aqaba. It was a menacing place where prisoners were forced to cluster according to their beliefs - political and religious, or around leaders they thought would protect them from violence. Inmates say Al-Maqdisi and Zarqawi gathered their supporters in a tight knot under Al-Maqdisi's leadership.

The section of Swaqa that housed political prisoners had four dormitories with bunk bedding for about 30 prisoners in each.

Al-Maqdisi took over a whole dormitory which became his tiny, Taliban-like lair. As

his lieutenant, Zarqawi was the enforcer of a strict code of conduct: group members had to seek permission to talk to other prisoners; their book reading was censored (Zarqawi punished a prisoner for reading Crime and Punishment) and the only press reports they had were clippings on events in Afghanistan; they could listen to the TV news, but the screen was permanently covered lest they see a woman newsreader.

In the middle of all this was Zarqawi's "tent" - he had draped the sides of his lower bunk bed with blankets, screening out the world as he laboured over the Koran.

The group was barred from organised sport with other prisoners and was made to exercise in a makeshift gym in which Zarqawi had fashioned weights from tin buckets of rocks strung on lengths of timber. To leave the group was to be sentenced to solitude for the rest of the term; to join others was an act of betrayal that met a violent response.

Several former inmates claimed Swaqa was the sort of place where, for sport, the warders would cuff prisoners to a hook high on a corridor wall so that passing officers could take out their frustration by beating them. Inmates said that in such cases, Zarqawi would attack an approaching officer to draw his attention away from the cuffed prisoner. "He was very brave - when I arrived at Swaqa he was already in solitary," one of them told me.

Members of the Al-Maqdisi-Zarqawi group were required to dress in the same Wahabbi style - the scraggy beard, short hair on their heads, dishdashas that came to just below their knees and, always, the black head-cloth that was the uniform of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Rababa the teacher said it was a hard group to penetrate, but had bargaining power in the form of money from outside donations.

Zarqawi took to giving passionate sermons on Fridays, usually on the failings of the Jordanian regime. He had none of Al-Maqdisi's charisma, but commanded the respect of his followers.

The majority view among the prisoners was that in those early days, Zarqawi was a deputy to Al-Maqdisi. A former inmate warned by the Jordanian authorities not to be interviewed nevertheless told Good Weekend: "We just didn't believe that he was, or would become, important. For our group, Al-Maqdisi was the important figure and we used to spend time trying to understand his ideology because it was extreme stuff - he was saying that the king and the Jordanian army and other security services were infidels and therefore it was right to use force against the regime. But Zarqawi had no ideas of his own, just whatever Al-Maqdisi fed to him. So we had the main guy there to talk to - why would we waste time with Zarqawi?"

But Zarqawi was not going to be anyone's No 2 for long. Several former inmates recounted a power struggle in which Al-Maqdisi's sullen and serious pupil challenged his control of the group.

In Jordanian parlance, Zarqawi was the only "East Banker" in the group. This was a critical advantage in his struggle with Al-Maqdisi. To come from the east bank of the Jordan River meant Zarqawi was of the powerful tribes that are the bedrock of the Jordanian establishment - he was of the legendary Beni Hassan tribe that watched over Jordan's border with Iraq and had delivered national leaders and many who served in the military and the intelligence services. Unlike the dislocated Palestinian Al-Maqdisi, Zarqawi's life was not governed by an instinctive fear of state officials - particularly the police and intelligence services.

But Zarqawi had another advantage. Both he and Al-Maqdisi were treated as heroes of the Afghanistan war. However, Al-Maqdisi had done his religious philosophising from Peshawar. That city certainly was a gateway to the Afghan theatre of war, but was located well inside the borders of neighbouring Pakistan. So as the only true Afghan veteran in Swaqa, Zarqawi's pedestal was that little bit higher.

A fellow inmate recollects the differences between the two, noting Zarqawi's blunt ideological persistence: "Al-Maqdisi could discuss literature, poetry and politics with all the confidence of his education, but Zarqawi knew none of this ... just the Koran, which he memorised in prison - all 6000-plus verses."

In contrast to Al-Maqdisi, Zarqawi subjected newcomers to a sudden-death assessment: "He'd talk to new prisoners, check their views on the regime and the police and decide very quickly if they were good Muslims or infidels, and whether or not they could join his group."

As the leader of another inmate group, the teacher Rababa met for frequent discussions on prison issues with both Al-Maqdisi and Zarqawi. He observed the widening personal rift between them. "Zarqawi told me that Al-Maqdisi had a behavioural problem," he recalls. "He accused him of selfishness and of negligence in his religious observances. Zarqawi saw Al-Maqdisi as two-faced because he was a religious scholar who also had a love of life." As Rababa saw it, Zarqawi was the opposite: "He loved his growing authority; everything had to be so serious, and his instinctive response if he felt threatened or cornered was to lash out. He had a strong personality, but Zarqawi didn't seem to have a vision for the future. His ideology was limited and his arguments in defence of it were even more limited - he had no interest in a dialogue. At the end of the day he was just like Bush, telling us, 'You are with me or against me.'"

The other prisoners were struck by the number of disciple-like visitors who came to see both men - and the weight of the business they discussed and what it revealed of Al-Maqdisi's power and influence. One told me a group of Saudi Arabians had come to receive Al-Maqdisi's religious blessing before the explosion of a 1500-kilogram-plus truck bomb at the Khobar Towers residential complex in Riyadh in 1996 - where 19 US servicemen died and almost 400 others were injured. The Khobar attack has come to be seen as the opening strike in a campaign that has effectively driven the US military out of Saudi Arabia.

Another cell-block colleague saw the difference in the two men's propensity for violence: "Al-Maqdisi was a coward ... afraid of the warders. It was always Zarqawi, who was physically stronger, who went on the front foot confronting the guards."

All the time Al-Maqdisi was watching Zarqawi, seemingly aware that he was being undermined, but unable to do anything about it. It was about four years after their arrival at Swaqa that prisoners outside the Beit Al-Imam group realised Zarqawi had slid into the leadership. Rababa the teacher observed that by the time of their release, Al-Maqdisi and Zarqawi no longer spoke to each other.

After his release, Zarqawi was back on the streets and in the mosques of Al-Zarqa. Unhappily, according to his brother-in-law: "I felt he was bored; I felt he was bitter. I felt the spirit of jihad inside him. He was dying to get out of this country."

Jordanian intelligence had a special unit to monitor the activities of Jordanians, like

Al-Maqdisi and Zarqawi, who had become Afghan Arabs. According to a well-placed observer in the Jordanian capital, the unit had a clear task: "Harass these guys to make it difficult for them to get jobs and, hopefully, to drive them out of the country. They blocked whatever Zarqawi wanted to do - at one stage he tried to buy a pick-up from which to sell fruit and vegetables, but they would not give him the paperwork. They were always harassing him, pulling him in for interrogation."

The Amman lawyer who had represented Zarqawi at his trial, Mohammed Al-Dweik, saw what was happening: "He came to see me. He wanted to live here and work here and to have a family - but the Interior Ministry would not give him the paperwork. Here in Jordan we beat and torture people like Zarqawi and make them want to leave the country - so he went back to Afghanistan."

But here there was something that didn't quite add up in Zarqawi's story - a period in which he cooled his heels, perhaps deciding on what course his life should take. The thug and firebrand of Swaqa left prison brimful of Al-Maqdisi's war cries and then stormed off to Peshawar which, early in 2000, was still the gateway to what by then had become Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Crossing the border should have been a doddle, but he seemed to hesitate, instead bringing his sick mother to Pakistan - hoping the air would be better for her. And when he finally headed west through the Khyber Pass, it was because he was forced to after Pakistani authorities arrested him for overstaying his six-month visa.

He was jailed briefly and ordered to leave the country. Jordan was no longer an option as he had been named there as a suspected terrorist, so Zarqawi packed his mother back to Amman, where she died early this year as she prayed that her son would die in battle, according to The New York Times. Zarqawi headed for Kabul.

It seems to have been a turning point, and he chose the moment to abandon his old identity, so well-known to authorities in Jordan, as he entered a new theatre of war. Having previously lived and travelled under his birth name, Ahmad Fadil Al-Khalayilah, Zarqawi decided to honour his home town, Al-Zarqa, by taking "Zarqawi" as his nom de guerre. He arrived in Afghanistan a year or more before 9/11 and the start of the US war on terror.

The question the Americans would like answered is whether Zarqawi has struck any sort of deal with Osama bin Laden. What happened on his return to Afghanistan and his movements since then are murky. Al-Jazeera television reported that Zarqawi fought with al-Qaeda in the last big battles in Afghanistan, including the US assault on Tora Bora. But in June, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld undercut much of Washington's argument of a link when he said of Zarqawi: "[He] may very well not have sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]. Maybe he disagrees with him on something; maybe because he wants to be 'The Man' himself." And in the Al-Hayat interview published in September, Zarqawi's unnamed associate was quoted as saying: "I wish he was al-Qaeda's representative in Iraq. But the truth is he has his own organisation, he is not an al-Qaeda member and he has no connection with Osama bin Laden."

Clearly, Zarqawi would have needed the Taliban's blessing to operate in Afghanistan before 9/11. But he did seem to be in pursuit of an agenda different from that of bin Laden. He set up a jihadist training camp at Herat in the west of Afghanistan, far away from bin Laden's camps on the eastern frontier with Pakistan. He complained to family friends that senior al-Qaeda types worried that he was too strict on his followers; he objected to their acceptance of Saudi donations; and he intimated it was the patronage of an Afghan warlord that had made his Herat camp possible.

But being in Herat put Zarqawi closer to the north-east corner of Iraq. This was an area protected from the regime of Saddam Hussein by the US-imposed no-fly zone. It was here that a small group of the so-called Afghan Arabs worked with local Kurdish fundamentalists to set up a Taliban-style fiefdom in the name of Ansar Al-Islam. Washington argued that this was in fact a fallback set up by al-Qaeda in the knowledge that after the 9/11 attacks it would not be able to work from Afghanistan.

But the evidence was inconclusive when the camps were raided as a part of the US invasion of Iraq. There was proof of experimentation in small-scale chemical terrorism but conflicting intelligence assessments on whether Zarqawi himself had been stationed in the camps.

People living near the Ansar Al-Islam camps claimed Zarqawi arrived soon after the 9/11 attacks and that he was an agent of al-Qaeda. A farmer told Al-Jazeera: "This house that you see behind me was built by the Ansar. Zarqawi, representative of Osama bin Laden, used to live here." Mohammed Rumman, a brother of the journalist Abdullah Abu Rumman, is doing a doctoral thesis on the Salafi movement. He says his sources have persuaded him it was the arrival of Zarqawi that moulded the camps into the sort of facility that might have turned out fighters who are now playing key roles in the Iraqi insurgency.

The US claims Zarqawi was close to Saddam's Baghdad and had been to the Iraqi capital to be treated for wounds from a US missile strike in Afghanistan. But Rumman believes Zarqawi remained in the north till after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. Zarqawi has been so contemptuous of the Saddam regime and the Baath Party, which he dismissed earlier this year as "infidels" and "weaklings who can't fight for themselves", that it is difficult to see how they might have worked together. Laith Shubaylat, an outspoken Amman lawyer, who was in Swaqa Prison with Zarqawi, told me: "He can deal only in black and white. He is so utterly inflexible I'd say it's impossible for him to work with the Baathists - you'd have to show me the video of the gun to his head before I could see him working with Saddam."

Jordanian security officials claim Zarqawi illegally re-entered his homeland through Syria late in 2002 - about a year after 9/11. A month later, US diplomat Laurence Foley was murdered. Three men were arrested, and all allegedly told investigators that Zarqawi had been the operation's instigator. It was his first entry into the Western media consciousness.

Five months later, Colin Powell made a now widely discredited speech before the United Nations justifying Washington's planned invasion of Iraq, in which he claimed Zarqawi was a bin Laden "associate and collaborator" who was part of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network".

Zarqawi's old Amman lawyer, Mohammed Al-Dweik, told me: "I stayed in touch with the client that I knew as Ahmad Fadil Al-Khalayilah till he disappeared off to Afghanistan and it wasn't till last year, when Colin Powell told the UN, that I knew there was a terrorist called Zarqawi. And a couple of days later I had a call from his mother to tell me that my client was the man in the news."

The US was warned that its invasion of Iraq would create a terrorist honey pot - and this was just what Zarqawi had been looking for. The early targets in the resistance were conventional - the US military and those Iraqi institutions deemed to be collaborators, such as police stations. But the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad in August last year signalled a critical new turn - and that a new hand seemed to be at work.

The blast was so powerful it destroyed the vehicle in which it was planted - no one could tell if it was a car, a bus or a truck. As many as a dozen people died and in the chaotic aftermath an Iraqi crowd stormed the building, destroying pictures of King Abdullah and his late father, King Hussein. US forces raced tanks and Humvees into place, leaving a circle of about 100 metres in diameter which was littered with body parts from the dead and injured and their wrecked cars. I was in Baghdad at the time, and I climbed onto the roof of an adjacent building to get a better view. Looking down, the circle looked like the first ripple going out in a campaign that would claim many more lives and would be felt way beyond the dusty confines of Baghdad.

All the dead were Iraqis. And perhaps because no Jordanian diplomats died and the building was not so badly damaged, the realisation that this was the start of a brutal new campaign by a new player was reserved for a bomb two weeks later at the UN's Baghdad headquarters. Zarqawi became the only and immediate suspect, in part because the embassy strike was a gory and personal double hit. Apart from being the first major insurgency bombing since the invasion of Iraq, it struck at the heart of the Amman regime which Zarqawi hated for its lack of Islamic purity and alliance with Washington.

Now, Zarqawi either claims or is blamed for every atrocity in Iraq - and several beyond its borders. Moroccan intelligence believes he may have helped organise the Madrid train bombings in March; the Germans say they have sprung a cell whose members were trained at Zarqawi's Afghanistan camp; and the Jordanians claim he was behind a plot in April this year in which 20 tonnes of chemicals were to be detonated in Amman, producing a poison cloud that could have killed 80,000 people. Whether Zarqawi has the muscle to run such a terror network across the world is an open question.

Unlike bin Laden, who has positioned himself more as a head-office strategic operator, Zarqawi is a hands-on, in-the-field jihadist.

US and other intelligence services have concluded from some of the beheading tapes that it is Zarqawi who is holding the knife and his voice making the announcements.

In a tape aired on Al-Jazeera, Zarqawi spelt out his agenda: "We are invading them, just as they are invading us; and we are attacking them, just as they are attacking us; and we are hurting them, just as they are hurting us." Soon after, he celebrated all that he claims as his work, and the rest of which he is accused, in another chilling audio recording: "God honoured us and so we harvested their heads and tore up their bodies in many places: the coalition forces in Karbala; the Italians in Nasseriyah; the US intelligence in Al-Shahin Hotel; and last, but not least, what God has honoured us with today: the Polish forces in Hilla."

There are, however, signs of tension between Zarqawi and the dozens of Iraqi insurgent groups that have emerged since last year's invasion. There were internet death threats against Zarqawi after a wave of attacks on Iraqi police stations earlier this year. Good Weekend was also told by sources in Falluja recently of

an organised movement that hoped to drive foreign fighters out of the war-torn city.

But some insurgency groups claim to be inspired by Zarqawi, fighting in his name without a direct link, in much the same way as the bin Laden brand of terrorism has been franchised around the world. Fighters who took to the streets in Baqaba, north of Baghdad, as part of a wave of tightly co-ordinated strikes that killed more than 100 people in the days before the June 28 establishment of Iyad Allawi's interim government wore headbands proclaiming their support for the Jordanian. Meanwhile, one of the more hardline Sunni mosques in Baghdad has been renamed to honour the medieval Muslim philosopher - Taqi Al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya - whose brutal religious justifications for war are the core of Salafi thought and the Zarqawi campaign.

Mohammed Al-Dweik, Zarqawi's lawyer in Amman, has vivid memories of being lectured by his client on his conversion to the brittle Salafi thinking that now underpins his every move. In a recent, late-night meeting on the terrace at the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman, he recalled how Zarqawi showed off what he had absorbed during his time with Al-Maqdisi: "He'd tell me that the Arab homelands were like fields - farmers' fields; that our leaders worked the fields for the US and that we, the Arab people, were their cows and donkeys." And like so many others in Jordan, Al-Dweik insists that Al-Maqdisi is the key to understanding Zarqawi, describing the scholar as "the most dangerous man in the whole Middle East". The lawyer said that what made Al-Maqdisi such a threat to the region was his single-handed revival of the warrior and religious teachings of the 14th-century scholar Taqi Al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, and the impetus that revival had given to the Salafi movement.

Zarqawi's agenda is not a simple demand that US forces leave Iraq. It is also about who should be allowed to run the country and even to live in it. Zarqawi believes the Allawi interim government must be eliminated, not just because of its association with the US but because it fails his Salafi test of religious purity. That is why Zarqawi has already issued a personal threat against the life of the interim prime minister. But under the arcane principles of Salafi thinking, Shiite Muslims - who make up about 65 per cent of the Iraqi population and are determined to take over the running of the country - are also deemed to be "infidel", and they, too, are Zarqawi targets.

Such are the strictures of this philosophical straitjacket that even though Zarqawi himself is a Sunni, he is opposed to the regime of the ousted Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party, both of which were Sunni but far too secular in their outlook for Zarqawi's liking. The Zarqawi world view is ferociously fundamentalist and allows for the survival of only the few who embrace his extremist Salafi doctrine.

The core Salafi belief, best exemplified by the Taliban in Afghanistan, is that only those who knew the Prophet Mohammed and the next three generations could have acquired a pure sense of what Mohammed understood of Islam. Any change outside that ancient narrow window is deviant behaviour that must be stamped out. But the philosophy divides again in terms of the perceived threats to Islam and, more importantly, the duty of individual Muslims to counter such threats. Do the threats reside only in a foreign, non-Islamic invader, like the US? Or is there an internal threat to Islamic purity in Muslim governments, be they tradition-based, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan; or puppet regimes installed by foreign force, as in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or, as Zarqawi is arguing in Iraq, whole classes of people like the country's Shiite majority?

None of these finer points was understood when Zarqawi first came to the attention of analysts and commentators, who conveniently bundled him in with al-Qaeda. But within the relativities of Islamic terror, Yousef Rababa, the teacher who did time with Zarqawi in Swaqa Prison, argues that bin Laden is less of an extremist than Zarqawi. To Westerners, it might seem like splitting doctrinal hairs, but the teacher told Good Weekend: "bin Laden sees Americans and Jews as the enemy, along with the foreigners who are in the Arab homelands. But in prison, Zarqawi told me that anyone we think is not a believer is the enemy - and that can be Arabs, too, especially Shiites."

Despite the ghoulish beheading tapes, Zarqawi is still much of a chimera. Given his philosophical opposition to so many of the factions around him, his support base in Iraq is not easily understood - other than that it is based on the old adage that "mine enemy's enemy is my friend".

Each tape he releases is pounced upon by teams of US experts who have concluded that most are genuine. But others take an interest, too. Many who did prison time with Zarqawi harbour doubts that this is the man they knew. The release of each tape sparks a ring-around among former inmates of Swaqa and others who have known Zarqawi, as they attempt to match the voice with that of their former cell-mate. There is much scepticism. His lawyer, Mohammed Al-Dweik, pulled at his own lower lip and tongue to mimic the sounds and patterns of his client's speech which he says are absent from the recordings. One of them added: "How do you go from being almost illiterate to near-genius? Personal limitations would make it impossible for someone like him to carry on a war in a country he doesn't know."

But perhaps the best insight into Zarqawi's thinking is a controversial letter recorded on a CD found in the possession of a suspected insurgency courier captured by Iraqi intelligence officers in the north of Iraq in January. American intelligence has seized on the letter because it was addressed to Osama bin Laden, underpinning Washington's claim of a relationship between bin Laden and Zarqawi.

However, there is only a bare hint of a master-servant relationship in the letter, which reads more like that of one chief executive to another on how to take advantage of a market opportunity: "We do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you ... [but] if you agree with us ... we will be your readied soldiers, working under your banner, complying with your orders, and indeed swearing fealty to you publicly and in the news media ... if things appear otherwise to you, we are brothers, and the disagreement will not spoil [our] friendship."

If it is genuine, this letter is of greater interest for what it reveals about Zarqawi and his plans to foment civil war in Iraq. The author uses classic flowery language to signal his plan to provoke a Muslim-on-Muslim civil war, when he says of the majority Shiite population: "They are the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion and the penetrating venom ... they are the enemy ... the bone in [our] throats ... if we succeed in dragging them into ... sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger and annihilating death at the hands of these Sabeans. The only solution is for us to drag the Shiites into battle ... to strike the religious, military, and other cadres among the Shiites with blow after blow until they bend to the Sunnis."

When the letter is read with an understanding of the Salafi dogma so fiercely held by Zarqawi, it becomes truly frightening. It warns of the approach of "zero hour" - June 30 - which then was the date Washington proposed handing some power over to an interim government. It harangues: "If we are able to strike [the Shiites] with one painful blow after another until they enter the battle ... if you knew the fear [for their future] among the Sunnis, your eyes would cry over them in sadness."

The emerging pattern of violence in Iraq is dishearteningly similar to the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. That was a conflict that claimed more than 60,000 lives in an unbridled application of Salafi-sanctioned Muslim-on-Muslim violence. The US-backed Algerian regime was attacked on the basis that it was a foreign lackey; Muslim civilians who sided with the regime or simply sat on their hands were deemed to be fair game because, as the Salafis would have it, by not defending Islam they were being un-Islamic; and the media, schools, missionaries and foreign individuals and companies all became targets.

Perhaps this is the challenge Zarqawi has set for himself in Iraq. The most sober intelligence assessments say he has a force of no more than a couple of hundred fighters - Jordanian and other Arab nationals. He can't do it all by himself, but there is a risk that the religious and other divisions that exist already in Iraq are so deep and treacherous that a campaign of well-targeted violence could provoke Iraqis into doing the job for him.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1625 From: Rescue1UK@...
Date: Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:30 pm
Subject: Re: [USMRA] Inflatable partition for underground fire fighting
rescue1uk2000
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Greetings Li Ming,
 
here in the UK we used a similar device to what you describe as a "temporary inflatable stopping", inflatable, and conforms to arched roadways, purchased in various sizes. It also has a space for "access" tubes through it, to enable rescue teams to go through.
Manufactured here in the UK by MFC Survival, +44 1443 433075   fax;  +44 1443 437846
 
Anything else, please get back to me.
 
Brian Robinson
mines rescue consultant
Great Britain

#1626 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:55 pm
Subject: Arch Coal's Coal-Mac Unit Achieves One Million Hours of Mining With No Lost Time Injuries
usmra
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Arch Coal's Coal-Mac Unit Achieves One Million Hours of Mining With No Lost Time Injuries
Monday October 18, 9:15 am ET

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arch Coal, Inc. and its Coal- Mac unit are celebrating the attainment of a significant safety milestone: one million hours without a single lost time work injury. That translates to over 1,050 days -- or nearly three years -- of safe and continuous operation at Coal-Mac.
 
"This milestone exemplifies a corporate-wide dedication to health and safety," says John W. Eaves, Arch Coal's chief operating officer. "It takes commitment, teamwork and the vigilance of every employee to set such a notable record. The men and women of Coal-Mac are to be congratulated for this rare accomplishment, and now they've set their sights on two million."

Coal-Mac's mining complex is located in southern West Virginia near Ragland. The mining operation has approximately 200 employees, and produced 2.1 million tons of coal in 2003. Coal-Mac recently earned the Silver Good Neighbor Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior for exemplary interaction, communication and involvement with the surrounding landowners and community. Last year, Coal-Mac earned the Mountaineer Guardian Award from the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety & Training for significant accomplishments in mine safety in 2003.

Arch Coal, Inc. (NYSE: ACI - News) is the nation's second largest coal producer and mines low-sulfur coal exclusively. With subsidiary operations in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Arch Coal provides the fuel for approximately 7 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. Arch's combined safety incident rate is more than two-times better than the industry average.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1627 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:16 pm
Subject: United Mine Workers of America Highly Concerned About "Focused Inspection" Study Ordered By MSHA
usmra
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For Immediate Release
October 14, 2004
Contact: Doug Gibson
(703) 208-7241

United Mine Workers of America Highly Concerned About "Focused Inspection" Study Ordered By Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is highly concerned about a contract awarded by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to ICF Consulting to recommend changes to the way the agency enforces the federal Mine Safety and Health Act (Mine Act).

The UMWA began demanding answers from MSHA about the ICF study in June 2003 after government sources leaked information to the union about an agency plan aimed at cutting mine safety inspections. Despite numerous requests to MSHA for an explanation, the agency was very slow to give the UMWA a response.

"Numerous letters and FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were filed with MSHA to try and get a clear picture of the exact intent of the ICF study," explained UMWA International President Cecil Roberts. "Now, more than a year after we first asked MSHA for information about the study-and more than year after we understand the study was completed-MSHA is still refusing to release the ICF report. However, a document we recently obtained from the Department of Labor (DOL) in response to one of our FOIAs does shed some light on the government contract awarded to the ICF."

"News from the DOL document is not good for the nation's coal miners," said Roberts. "It showed that MSHA paid ICF nearly a half-million in taxpayer dollars to conduct a study recommending changes on mine inspections, including reducing the amount of time for conducting mine inspections, reducing manpower required to conduct inspections and focusing resources on non-enforcement compliance assistance."

Roberts said, "It is ludicrous to cut back on federal mine safety inspections that are integral to protecting the nation's miners-who work in one of the most dangerous industries-from injury, illness and death. In just the past two weeks, five coal miners have died in our nation's mines. That is an alarming statistic and a harsh reminder of the importance of these critical inspections. MSHA's emphasis should be on finding ways to increase safety inspections, not reduce them. First and foremost, the 1969 Mine Act instructed MSHA to conduct exhaustive inspections of the nation's coal mines to prevent death and injury. One has to ask: 'What exactly is MSHA's problem with that directive?'" He continued, "If President Bush is reelected and MSHA moves to cut mine safety inspections, the UMWA fears an even greater number of coal miner fatalities. That is simply unacceptable. This agency is supposed to protect miners' health and safety, not hinder it."

Roberts explained that the UMWA has also learned that MSHA awarded ICF a no-bid contract to conduct its study and that ICF bills itself as "providing expert testimony and litigation support to coal companies" and other energy businesses.

"The UMWA was alarmed-but, sadly, not surprised-to learn that MSHA contracted with a consultant in business solely to help companies associated with the energy industry," said Roberts. "This would explain why the UMWA was never asked by ICF or MSHA for our input with respect to the study, nor were we allowed to meet with them. Yet, MSHA did help arrange for several mine operators to meet with ICF."

"Unfortunately," added UMWA International Secretary-Treasurer Carlo Tarley, "this is the reality the UMWA and coal miners nationwide face today. MSHA's top positions are filled with ex-coal bosses like David Lauriski, and the needs and concerns of mine operators seem to supercede those of the miners themselves."

Roberts called on MSHA to quit "thumbing its nose at the law-the FOIA-that guarantees the right for public access to government documents. We demand that MSHA release the ICF report before the Nov. 2 election because miners deserve to know exactly what the Administration's plans are for the nation's mine safety inspection program."

"There are many reasons the UMWA is working so hard to get John Kerry elected president," Roberts concluded, "but one of the most important is the need to change the present-day culture at MSHA, which each day becomes more and more detrimental to working coal miners."

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1628 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:56 am
Subject: Afghan miners toil on in the pits of death
usmra
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Afghan miners toil on in the pits of death

An industry of lost lives is seeking new wealth
 
THE miners’ farewell to daylight was brief as the 20-year-old dolly tilted over the edge of the shaft and began its descent, winched down into the darkness at a 65-degree angle.

No one said much. In the late summer the winch cable at Pit No 3 in the Karkar coal mine in Afghanistan had broken, hurtling two men to their deaths in this same dolly. Certainly, no one mentioned that there was already a fire burning through a tunnel connecting the galleries below.

“I say to my son, ‘Whatever you do, never work down a mine’,” said Muhammad Mosum, a miner stripped to the waist and black from head to toe. “I say, ‘Go to school, study, do what it takes, whatever it takes, but don’t come under the mountains with me’.”

The most dangerous of Afghanistan’s civilian professions, the mining industry is in a state of disrepair, sending its workforce underground into appalling conditions with only the most rudimentary equipment and no communications with the surface.

In recent history Pit No 3 has claimed more than its share of men through gas, fire, and tunnel collapse. Two huge explosions had previously taken more than 200 lives. And today there were to be two more casualties before the morning shift had finished.

The industry seems to be beyond repair. Yet the Government is now waking up to the potential of the country’s natural wealth as it seeks to rebuild the economy.

“We know the location of only 10 per cent of our mineral resources,” said Ibrahim Adel, an engineer and the president of the Mines Affairs Department. “There has never been an accurate survey in our history. Geologically our country is similar to Turkmenistan. We see no reason why it should not have the same resources. We are alone in the region in not knowing what we are sitting on.”

Next month, British and American geological survey teams are linking up with Afghan counterparts to begin a ten-year survey exploring the country, already known to be rich in real, precious and base metals, oil, coal and gas and precious stones. Russia’s limited prewar survey discovered 120 billion cubic metres of gas in northern Afghanistan, as well as 12 million tonnes of oil, 11 million ton nes of copper and 125 million tonnes of coal.

The Afghan Government, backed by loans from the World Bank, is working on drafts for two new Bills known as the mineral and hydrocarbon laws. Intended to be passed by December, they aim to take existing mines — many of which are controlled by warlords — under government jurisdiction and have them developed enough to attract foreign investment.

Seven coalmines are held by local commanders, who, in theory at least, pay only a nominal 550 Afghanis (£7.50) per tonne of illegally mined coal to the Government. Not one emerald mine is controlled by Kabul, and the largest lapis lazuli mine, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, whose semi-precious stones were being imported into Egypt in the 4th millennium BC, is held by a coalition of Mujahidin leaders.

The challenges of getting the industry re-equipped are huge.

Once among the pride of Afghanistan’s 11 coal mines, Karkar employed a thousand miners and was a thriving industrial complex. Together with three other principal mines, all in the north near the town of Pul-i-Khumri, it could lift more than 200,000 tonnes of coal a year to the surface. Czechoslovak engineers oversaw its work, equipping it with the latest Eastern bloc technology.

Now though, after the demise of communism and years of conflict, the pithead is a graveyard of rusting metal: generators, winches and drilling equipment are abandoned in a junkheap around the shaft. The Czechoslovaks are long gone and so is most of the workforce. Only 160 miners remain, working in abominable conditions far below ground, chipping the coal face with pickaxes and lifting barely 30,000 tonnes of coal a year.

At the coal face last Thursday, a five-minute dolly ride from the surface, miners repaired the twisted metal and buckling timbers of the gallery walls with a mixture of wood, straw and mud, while a 52-year-old man, Taki, swung his pick at the coal. It was hot and dust filled the narrow confines of the gallery, little more than 1.5m (5ft) high in places. Each of Taki’s blows dislodged debris which fell from the ceiling in an unnerving patter on to the men’s helmets.

Later that morning, safe on the surface, we watched two men, gassed by monoxide fumes, pulled out into the daylight where they lay choking on the ground. “Maybe they’ll die, maybe not,” said Anargul, a miner, as the men were injected with glucose and vitamin C, the only treatment available. “I’ve seen it so many times before. They were trying to put out the fire so we could all get back to work and earn our money. They hung around too long.”

“Look, there goes another one,” he pointed at another miner walking determinedly back to the shaft to wrestle with the fire. “I bet he’ll get in next, and some poor guy will have to pull him out on his back, Afghan-style. What a life.”

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1629 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:51 am
Subject: State report critical of mining company in child's boulder death
usmra
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State report critical of mining company in child's boulder death
BY KATHY STILL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
Oct 19, 12:39 AM EDT

BIG STONE GAP –No precautions were taken by workers to keep rocks at a strip mine from rolling down a slope, even though they knew residents were sleeping 600 feet below the road they were working on, according to a report released Monday by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.

The draft report goes on to say that it was "gross negligence" on the part of A&G Coal Corp. that caused a 1,000-pound boulder to dislodge at about 2 a.m. on Aug. 20 from strip mine No. 13 as a bulldozer operator worked in the dark to widen a road so it could be used for coal hauling.

The rock rolled down the mountain, slammed into the wall of an Inman Road home and crushed 3-year-old Jeremy Kyle Davidson to death as he slept.

The boy’s death caused an outcry in the region for changes in state mining laws. Gov. Mark Warner appointed a legislative panel to review mining regulations.

The report is more detailed than a preliminary finding released a few days after the incident and recommends some changes in mining regulations and laws aimed at improving public safety. It will be presented to the panel next month during a public hearing.

State mining regulators concluded that A&G officials conducted the unauthorized road reconstruction at night above the Inman homes and assigned a dozer operator who was inexperienced in road construction to work in an area known to be a potential hazard for residents below. The company also failed to visually monitor the placement of dirt and rock to prevent it from falling down the hill, the report states.

Workers were told to reconstruct the road in almost total darkness, the report states. The bulldozer had lights, but its large blade limited visibility for the operator, according to the report.

Company officials did not know the rock rolled away until a worker driving on Inman Road noticed rescue personnel and ambulances at the home of Dennis and Cindy Davidson, the report states. The worker called mine officials and the company’s safety director left a message on DMME’s answering machine.

"Uh. We’ve rolled a rock off of one of our strip jobs located there in Inman section of Appalachia," a transcript of the message states. "There’s been notification that a house did, I mean a rock did hit a house so a, and that there may be a child that had been injured. I don’t know any more details other than that, but I’ll follow up as soon as I know more. Thank you."

Company officials followed up the message later that morning. Officials from the mining department responded at about 4 a.m., the report states.

Some workers made statements to investigators that were contradicted by conditions observed by inspectors at the mine site, the report states. The workers and company officials, acting upon legal advice from a company lawyer, refused to make further statements when investigators asked to question them a second time, the report states.

Coal company officials could not be reached for comment Monday night.

A special prosecutor has been assigned to determine whether criminal charges will be filed.

Several actions were suggested by the state mining department to prevent a similar event.

Although the document includes recommendations for regulatory changes, it states that Virginia’s existing statutes require that coal be mined in a way that keeps the public safe.

Delegate Bud Phillips, D-Sandy Ridge, commended the department for making an effort to propose changes.

"I believe the proposals they made are moving in the right direction," Phillips said. "At the minimum, their proposals would, hopefully, prevent another tragedy. However, I think the panel needs to further study the proposals as submitted by DMME."

Phillips, who asked the governor to appoint a committee to examine the Inman incident, said the panel likely will have additional suggestions for legislative action.

"The real issue is there needs to be a prohibition against mining at night above homes that are in imminent peril," Phillips said.

Matt Mining, the company that holds the mining permit for the strip mine that A&G is mining by contract, was fined $15,000 for three violations resulting from the boulder incident. The fine outraged some local residents, who have been meeting monthly to protest what they call dangerous strip-mining practices.

The department recommends that state law be amended to provide for a two-tier civil penalty assessment so violations that result in injury or the death of a public individual be raised to $70,000 per violation. All other violations would remain subject to the existing $5,000 cap.

Laws should be amended to require mine operators to submit a more detailed ground-control plan for state approval, the report concludes. Those plans should include details about how residents living down slope from mining operations would be notified when work is taking place above their homes and the type of work, the report recommends.

The chief of the Division of Mines should be authorized to require all miners to complete training to "abate individual violations’ and to require operators to take action to address hazardous conditions or practices, the report states. The chief should also be given the power to administer oaths to witnesses during accident investigations. Individual mine inspectors now have this power.

Strip-mine operators should submit an updated map of each surface mine annually, and mine examination records should be countersigned by a person responsible for safety, the report recommends.

Signs and markers that outline the mining permit boundary should be marked with fluorescent or reflective paint or material to increase visibility at night, the report states.

Mike Abbott, spokesman for DMME, said the agency will not answer questions about the draft report until the Nov. 4 meeting and public hearing at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap. The hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Goodloe Center.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1630 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:47 am
Subject: Huaneng seeks longer-term coal supplies
usmra
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Huaneng seeks longer-term coal supplies
2004-10-19 13:25:33

    BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Huaneng Power International Inc., China’s largest independent electricity producer, aims to secure more than half of its coal supplies through long-term market-based contracts after it was battered by surging fuel costs this year.

    “We aim to secure more than half of the coal we need from long-term contracts. We can’t say the exact proportion. It is a commercial secret,” chairman Li Xiaopeng said on the sidelines of an industry conference in Shanghai on Monday, according to Shenzhen Daily.

    Until recently, Chinese power producers typically bought coal on the spot market and through one-year contracts under State-set terms.

    This year through mid-September, coal prices in China leapt by 43 percent to 390 yuan (US$41.10) per ton, thanks to surging electricity demand fuelled by China’s booming economy, as well as transport bottlenecks.

    China produced 1.39 billion tons of raw coal between January and September, 19.8 percent more than in the same period last year, the State Administration for Coal Mine Safety said.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1631 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:18 am
Subject: Agency offers ideas for law changes
usmra
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Agency offers ideas for law changes
October 19, 2004
 
In a draft report on the Aug. 20 death of a young boy, the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy offers proposed law changes to make coal mine employees and the public safer.
"As a result of this accident investigation, DMME amended some of its methods and offers recommendations that should be taken by coal mining companies," a Monday news release states. "It also suggests changes to the laws and regulations governing coal mining in Virginia. DMME is offering these recommendations to help ensure that this type of accident will not happen again."

Jeremy Kyle Davidson, 3, was killed Aug. 20 when a boulder from a nearby surface mine rolled downhill and crashed into his home in Inman.

The proposed revisions, relating to coal operations, are:

** All revisions to a surface mining permit must be submitted to the Division of Mined Land Reclamation for approval. Construction or reconstruction of roads, changes to operations or reclamation plans or changes to any issue that is subject to public controversy are considered significant revisions. Significant revisions require newspaper notice to be published for four consecutive weeks followed by a 30-day public comment period. An application for a permit revision cannot be approved unless the applicant demonstrates and the DMLR finds that the revised operation will meet regulatory requirements.

** All operations must ensure adequate slope stability and provide effective protection from dislodged material that could impact public safety and private property. Before disturbing a slope area above a private residence the permittee or operator must have obtained the necessary approvals from the DMLR.

** All surface coal mining operations must establish and follow a ground control plan that ensures a safe work area. The plan must address how loose hazardous material from the tops of banks and other areas is to be handled. This plan should include a map showing the location of homes and other occupied buildings, public and other roads used for vehicle travel, gas wells and transmission lines, and any other locations where ground-disturbing mining activity could affect worker and public safety and private property.

** Equipment must be operated consistent with the conditions that exist in the area and the type of equipment being used. When work is planned on slope areas, this means that operators should use equipment and processes that are properly designed to perform the work and prevent accidental dislodging of materials.

** A certified person at a surface coal mine must complete an on-shift examination of the work area of the mine to identify any hazardous conditions. The surface foreman at the mine must take prompt action to have any hazardous conditions corrected, barricaded or posted with warning signs. Any imminent danger that cannot be removed within a reasonable time must be reported to the Division of Mines chief by the quickest available means.

The proposed revisions relating to citizen safety are:

** Mine operators should be required to submit more detailed ground control plans for approval by the Division of Mines. In addition to current requirements, the ground control plans should address how residents down slope from ground disturbing operations will be notified when that work will take place and how the affected areas will be controlled to protect the public safety.

The report suggests mine operators notify residents at least three hours before ground disturbing work is to begin, specifying the type of work to be performed, the types of precautions being used to prevent material from becoming dislodged above their residence and the length of time that the work is expected to last. The mine operator would need to maintain a written record of the notifications, including the name of the person who made the notifications, the people notified, the time of the notifications, the time that the work is to be started and the method used to notify each individual.

As for control of the work, mine operators could mark along the perimeter of any area to be disturbed with visible markers separate from permit boundary markers. The markers would need to be distinctive and of adequate size and height to be visible to the operator of any type of equipment to be used in the area. In lieu of using such markers, the report offers, the work could be monitored by a spotter to prevent accidental dislodging and travel of material down the slope, or the operator could notify and evacuate affected residents or occupants at all times that material is being pushed, dumped, loaded, or otherwise disturbed.

** The Division of Mines chief should be authorized to require individual miners to complete training to abate individual violations and require coal mine operators to implement action plans to address hazardous conditions or practices.

** The Division of Mines chief should be empowered to compel attendance of witnesses and administer oaths during investigations of accidents and willful violations of the mine safety act. This authority is currently vested with individual mine inspectors.

** Surface coal mine operators should be required to annually submit an updated map of each surface mine. Currently, operators of surface coal mines must submit the map only when the mine will intersect with underground workings.

** Mine examination records should be countersigned by a person responsible for safety at a mine. The amendment should require that the supervisor of the examiner creating the records, or another person with equivalent authority to the supervisor, to promptly read and countersign the records and ensure that action necessary to eliminate or control any hazardous condition found during the examination has been taken.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1632 From: <sweethearts_man@...>
Date: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:09 am
Subject: Re: [USMRA] Inflatable partition for underground fire fighting
sweethearts_man
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Hi Li Ming,

You asked a tough one,  there are not to many outfits
making mining inflatable bulk heads anymore,  ABC
ventilation industries can make speciality items,  but
the only company that I have run acrossed recently
that has anything remotely like what you are looking
for is made by a company name Rocvent.  They make some
inflatable air locks,  I don't if they make anything
for foam machines, but they may have something that
would adapt to the airlock system.

Rocvents website is:  www.rocvent.com

We are likewise looking for inflatable bulkheads for a
form generator we use at our mine.

Good luck sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Pat Gazewood
Barrick Meikle Mine Rescue


--- liming_cq <liming_cq@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hello,
>
> I am looking for inflatable partition devices for
> fire fighting with
> foam generator in underground mines. This device can
> temperately
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> that the foam
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> into smoke-filled
> area through this device. Would you please let me
> know if you know
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>
> Regards,
>
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> Li Ming
>
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>
>
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>




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#1633 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:06 am
Subject: Some mining charges dismissed
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Some mining charges dismissed


CONVICTIONS STAND FOR FIRM, WORKER

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Some of the convictions against a Muhlenberg County coal mine and its top employees for violating federal mine safety laws have been dismissed by a judge.

U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. of Owensboro, in an order entered Wednesday, set aside one of two felony convictions against KenAmerican Resources Inc., the company that operates the Paradise No. 9 mine. McKinley also set aside five felony convictions involving three employees, leaving only the company and mine superintendent Bobby Gibson convicted of the single felony of conspiring to violate mine-safety laws.

Defense lawyers hailed McKinley's order as a victory for the defendants in the case in which federal prosecutors alleged flagrant cheating on measures required to control dust at the underground mine from 1996 to March 2000, when a flood triggered an investigation of conditions at the mine.

Coal dust causes pneumoconiosis, or black lung, a disease that kills hundreds of miners a year.

"I believe the judge's decision further demonstrates that the charges against KenAmerican were the product of an overzealous prosecution," said Clyde Bennett II, a lawyer for KenAmerican.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Cushing, one of the prosecutors, said KenAmerican and its superintendent remain convicted of a felony and the company and four employees remain convicted of misdemeanor charges involving mine-safety laws. Cushing said prosecutors could appeal McKinley's ruling, but no decision has been reached.

"I don't see it as a real victory for KenAmerican and Gibson," he said.

In his ruling throwing out one felony count, McKinley found that the charge used by prosecutors is not allowed by federal law. McKinley threw out felony convictions of the company and three employees for concealing information about hazardous conditions by alerting employees underground whenever federal mine inspectors came on the property. Prosecutors alleged mine officials alerted employees with the code words "company's comin'," giving them time to correct violations before inspectors could make the trip underground.

McKinley ruled that federal law does not require mine officials to disclose hazardous conditions to inspectors and, therefore, the action alleged is not an offense.

He also ruled that the actions of two employees did not constitute felonies in the other count of conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws.

He reduced the charges against those two to misdemeanors while upholding the felony conviction against the company and superintendent.

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 3 and 4 at U.S. District Court in Owensboro.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1634 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:49 pm
Subject: China's deadly mines
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China's deadly mines
Thursday, October 21, 2004 Posted: 0928 GMT (1728 HKT)
 

(CNN) -- China's mines are among the most deadly workplaces in the world with fatal accidents reported on an almost daily basis.

Many deaths go unrecorded because mine owners fear being punished and local officials in poorer regions are keen to keep open what is often one of the few sources of employment.

On top of that, coal, which dominates China's huge mining industry, is a much-needed resource in the energy-hungry nation, providing some 70 percent of fuel needs.

With demand for energy soaring as China's grows at breakneck speed, many mine owners flagrantly cut corners, and even the most basic safety laws in the pursuit of a quick profit.

Fires, floods and other accidents in coal mines killed 4,153 people, the Chinese government said this week in a regular report on industrial safety.

It said that figure was down 13 percent from the same period last year, due largely to a nationwide safety crackdown.

But despite the crackdown, authorities say local officials leave many questionable mines open in order to keep unemployment low.

Taking the risk

Backed up by a growing unemployment problem, there is also a seemingly inexhaustible supply of labor, many of them migrants, willing to take the risk in return for a wage.

The International Labor Organization -- the United Nations body set up to oversee workers rights and industrial safety -- has said in the past that the high death toll in China's mines should be a focus for urgent action.

"Since virtually all mine accidents are preventable the fact that they continue to such an extent in China is particularly worrying to all concerned," the ILO said.

The organization has urged China to adopt the International Convention on Safety and Health in Mines, so far taken up by 17 countries, all of whom have recorded big reductions in mining fatalities.

To effectively tackle mining related deaths, the ILO says action will be needed on several fronts," notably inspection, education, training, investment in appropriate equipment in mines large and small, and a change in attitude towards a safety culture."

By far the most deadly of Chinese mines are those operated by small private firms or local governments, with many relying on poorly maintained, outdated technology.

Crackdowns

In the past few years, thousands of such mines have been ordered closed by the central government in Beijing during periodic crackdowns, often in response to a particularly deadly accident.

However many have subsequently reopened, often operating in collusion with local officials who receive backhanders from the mine owners in return for turning a blind eye.

Some observers say the stiff penalties the government has promised to impose on mine owners found breaking safety rules may actually be counterproductive, leading to even more accidents going unreported or deliberately covered up.

Severe laws passed in Beijing may make the government look like it is taking the issue seriously.

But the ILO says for such laws to be effective training, education, information sharing and awareness raising, resources and cooperation must also be provided in quantity.

CNN's Joe Havely contributed to this report

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1635 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:46 pm
Subject: 200 die as blast hits Chinese mine
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200 die as blast hits Chinese mine
Correspondents in Beijing
October 22, 2004

CHINA'S abysmal mine safety record reached a new low yesterday with news that more than 200 workers had been killed in a gas explosion deep underground.

The disaster happened close to midnight on Wednesday in the Daping coal mine near Xinmi city in central Henan province, while hundreds of workers toiled at change-of-shift time.

Fifty-six bodies had been recovered by last night and more than 100 rescuers were deep in the mine searching for 148 people still missing but presumed dead.

"We're trying to find those miners, but the chances they're still alive are small," an official at the Henan Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau said.

"The situation is very tough in the mine, the gas is very dense, and in those kind of conditions, it's hard to survive."

Sun Huashan, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, told reporters at a briefing in Beijing that it was "the worst accident so far this year".

At the time of the explosion, shortly before midnight on Wednesday, there were 446 people inside the mine, according to a statement posted on the website of the State Administration of Work Safety.

An official at the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group, which runs the mine, said the blast happened at one of the pit's busiest times when two work shifts were overlapping.

"We've got two shifts, one that works from two in the afternoon until midnight, and one that begins at 10 in the evening and goes home at eight the morning after," the official said.

Song Guangtai, deputy director of the Henan Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau, said the cause of the blast was being investigated.

China, the world's biggest consumer and producer of coal, has an appalling mining safety record, with many pits reported to be in an abominable condition.

An economy growing at a feverish pace has led to a voracious appetite for more energy sources, but this has done little to improve the safety standards.

The most serious recent accident was in June 2002 at a mine in northeast Heilongjiang province, when 111 workers were killed.

Seven people died in a gas explosion late last month at a coal mine near Xinmi, and in April, 12 people were reported missing in a flooding of another Xinmi mine, also apparently run by the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group.

Even as the rescue effort was under way yesterday, another gas leak in a mine in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing killed six miners and left seven missing, the Xinhua news service reported.

In the first nine months of this year, 4153 people died in 2796 fatal mine accidents in China, according to the State Bureau for Work Safety. Some experts say the real figure is much higher as local authorities are thought to cover up some fatal accidents.

The total number of traffic, work-related and other accidental deaths for the same period was 98,809, the bureau reported yesterday.

Mr Sun said the Xinmi accident showed that "there are still a lot of insufficiencies in the safe production in mines .. especially under the current heavy demand for coal."

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1636 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:12 am
Subject: Feds look for prospective mine inspectors in Kentucky, Virginia
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Feds look for prospective mine inspectors in Kentucky, Virginia
October 20, 2004

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. The U-S Mine Safety and Health Administration will be recruiting federal mine inspectors in towns in Kentucky and Virginia in the next two weeks.

Spokesman Rodney Brown says the stops in central Appalachian are part of a nationwide recruitment effort to replace inspectors who will be retiring.

Brown said the screenings for Virginia will be held October 26th and 27th at the Holiday Inn in Norton for positions in Norton, Grundy and Richlands.

He says applicants should arrive by 8 a-m, bring a completed job application or resume and valid photo identification to the screenings. They will have to pass a math and writing test to get an interview.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1637 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:53 pm
Subject: Miner and daughter killed in explosion
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Miner and daughter killed in explosion

October 20, 2004, 10:54

A 50-year-old miner and his eight-year-old daughter were killed early this morning when commercial explosives detonated at their house in Westonaria. Police say three other people, a 21-year-old man and two boys who were in a second bedroom, escaped with minor injuries.

The 21-year-old man woke up around 4am from the explosion. He grabbed the 12-year-old and 14-year-old boys, who were asleep with him in the room, and dived through a window. After a few minutes the young man, a nephew of the dead man, looked through the window of the room where his uncle and cousin were sleeping. He saw their bodies on the bed.

When the police arrived at the scene shortly afterwards, it was discovered the uncle and his daughter had died in the explosion. The origin of the explosives is being investigated.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1638 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:37 pm
Subject: President Hu urges saving lives of trapped coal miners
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President Hu urges saving lives of trapped coal miners
2004-10-21 20:54:23

    BEIJING, Oct. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao Thursday asked local governments to spare no effort to save miners trapped in a coal mine by a gas explosion Wednesday in central China's Henan Province.

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice Premier Huang Ju Thursday also instructed local officials to save the victims, find out the cause of the accident and deal with the aftermath.

    The blast occurred at 10:47 p.m. in the Zhengmei Group's DapingMine, located in Xinmi.

    A work team led by State Councilor Hua Jianmin arrived at the accident site Thursday afternoon.

    Hua told Xinhua that the government will try its best to find the missing, treat the injured, prepare compensation for families and uncover the cause.

    All coal mines in the country will conduct self-inspections on workplace safety to minimize potential risk, he added.

    So far 60 people have been confirmed dead and 88 are still missing following the blast.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1639 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:40 pm
Subject: Death toll of central China coal mine blast climbs to 62
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Death toll of central China coal mine blast climbs to 62
2004-10-22 01:59:52

    ZHENGZHOU, Oct. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- The death toll of the Daping coal mine gas blast climbed to 62, as rescuers found two more bodies there Thursday night.

    The whereabouts of 86 others are still unknown.

    The blast occurred 10:10 p.m. Wednesday when 446 miners were working in the mine of Zhengmei Group, which is located in Xinmi City in Central China's Henan Province.

    Two hundred and ninety-eight miners managed to escape after the blast happened, while the rest were trapped underground.

    The provincial government has quickly organized the rescue operation while a 14-member working team of the State Council, headed by Secretary-General of the State Council Hua Jianmin, arrived at the mine Thursday afternoon.

    As of 11:18 p.m, the death toll had risen to 62, 55 died from suffocation, but 86 others are still missing.

    Local source said the trapped miners are mostly from Henan Province, and that the survival chance for the missing is quite slim.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1640 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:24 am
Subject: 'Stay Out -Stay Alive' program takes aim on students
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'Stay Out -Stay Alive' program takes aim on students
October 21, 2004
 
LEAD - Keeping would-be explorers and wayward spelunkers out of abandoned mines is the object of a safety program being promoted by the Homestake Mine. Dangers lurk in abandoned mine workings, but the tunnels and openings left behind sometimes look inviting despite those dangers.
 
Homestake workers are visiting local schools and getting the word out about safety in conjunction with the Mining Health and Safety Administration of the federal government. Locally, the company teamed up with the Deadwood and Lead fire departments to make presentations during annual Fire Prevention Week, Oct. 2 - 8.

Each year MSHA records scores of abandoned mine and quarry accidents - some involve fatalities and some do not. All of these accidents put rescue personnel at risk in confronting the same unstable conditions that necessitated a rescue.

In South Dakota, a 13-year-old Sioux Falls boy died on Aug. 15, 2001, while playing on construction equipment at a sand and gravel operation.

In our own area just outside of Lead, a man fell 150 feet down an abandoned shaft and was rescued by search and rescue crews. The shaft was located on private land.

Homestake has plugged, closed or otherwise guarded off all of the estimated 200 shafts and adits (horizontal mine tunnels) on its own property, according to General Manager Karl Burke. While the company is confident that its own property is being safely maintained, trespassing on Homestake's land will not be tolerated, Burke said.

Since the entire area enjoys a rich history of mining activity, and it is likely that many abandoned sites are peppered throughout the hills where patented mining claims were made, according to Tom Regan, Homestake safety manager.

Hikers, ATV drivers, bikers and others could be attracted to dangerous sites on private land but need to be aware that staying away from out mine workings or quarries and gravel pits may be life-saving. Noxious gases, deep water that may be frigid or toxic, steep embankments and drop-offs along with the possibility of becoming lost or disoriented in tunnels are just a few of the dangerous situations that may occur in abandoned sites. Unused explosives may be stored in or near old mines and pose additional dangers if touched or disturbed.

Burke said all of Homestake's explosives have been removed or destroyed but the same may not be true of other private locations in the Black Hills.

In Lead-Deadwood Middle School, Homestake's Regan and a representative of MSHA held an assembly with 250 students. Lead's Asst. Fire Chief Jerome Harvey assisted with the presentation. Students learned the lesson, "If you have to be rescued, you aren't the only one at risk." Students were able to see the breathing apparatus and some of the other safety equipment necessary for trained professionals to work in an underground environment.

At the elementary level, Homestake and MSHA representatives met with 19 classes at the Deadwood Fire Hall where they met Alex Hamann, a Deadwood Police officer who also assists with rescues when needed.

"We've had a lot of positive feedback from teachers and parents about the programs," Regan said.
A different sort of learning experience is planned for the Lead-Deadwood High School students. The student newspaper staff (The Nugget) will come to Homestake, tour the property and be alerted to the dangers of abandoned mine workings. Then the students will write their own reports in the student newspaper for their fellow students.

Regan said he is also visiting local civic organizations with safety information. "It's enjoyable and rewarding knowing that we may have prevented even one child, one individual from being in harm's way," he added.

Homestake also hopes that actively educating local citizens about safety issues will leave a critical legacy behind as a part of mine closure and reclamation.
 
___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1641 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:10 am
Subject: Figures highlight safety situation
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Figures highlight safety situation
2004-10-22 08:45:46

Related: Senior official vows to protect workers' rights

    BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- At a news conference yesterday, the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) disclosed the statistics about workplace accidents from January to September.

    The number of injury accidents was 607,429, causing 98,809 fatalities during the first three quarters, a decrease of 123,699 accidents or 16.92 per cent and a decline of 245 fatalities or 0.25 per cent compared with the same period last year.

    Accidents that occurred in industrial, mining and commercial and trading sectors numbered 10,536. They caused 11,620 deaths, a decrease of 1,491 accidents or 12.4 per cent and 1,016 fatalities or 8.04 per cent lower than last year.

    - Coal mines: 2,796 fatal accidents, caused 4,135 fatalities, a decrease of 242 accidents or 8 per cent lower and of 630 fatalities or 13.17 per cent lower.

    - Metallic and non-metallic mines: 1,638 fatal accidents occurred, causing 1,914 fatalities, a decrease of 107 accidents or 6.13 per cent and 91 fatalities or 4.54 per cent lower.

    Dangerous chemicals: 128 fatal accidents, causing 183 fatalities, a decrease of 69 accidents or 35.03 per cent and 72 fatalities or 28.23 per cent.

    Fire accidents numbered 198,385 with 1,917 fatalities, increasing 9,021 or 4.76 per cent, with 258 fatalities or a 15.55 per cent growth.

    Road traffic: 384,381 accidents with a death toll of 77,664, a decrease of 126,031 or a 24.69 per cent rate and an increase of 1,772 fatalities or 2.33 per cent.

    Aquatic accidents numbered 406 to cause 393 deaths or missing persons, a decrease of 92 accidents or 18.47 per cent and an increase of 42 fatalities or 11.97 per cent growth.

    Railway transport: 9,107 accidents, causing 6,117 fatalities, a decrease of 195 accidents or 2.1 per cent and 190 fatalities or 3.01 per cent lower as compared with the same period last year.

    Civil aviation: two fatal accidents occurred, with six fatalities, an increase of two accidents.

___________________________________________________________
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#1642 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:21 am
Subject: China mine explosion
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Follow all the news covering the Daping coal mine disaster in China's Henan Province which occurred on October 20, 2004.  Many photos are included.
 
 
The blast occurred 10:10 p.m. Wednesday when 446 miners were working in the mine of Zhengmei Group located in Xinmi.

Two hundred and ninety-eight miners managed to escape after the blast happened, while the rest (148) were trapped underground.

___________________________________________________________
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#1643 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:06 pm
Subject: 29 miners missing in coal mine flooding
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29 miners missing in coal mine flooding
October 22, 2004
 
Beijing, Oct 22 (PTI) In the second mine accident in two days, 29 miners went missing when a sudden gush of water flooded a coal pit in China's northern Hebei province, state media reported today.

A total of 63 miners were working underground at the coal mine yesterday when the flooding occurred out of which 24 managed to escape, Chinese Central Television reported.

The provincial government has sent rescuers to the accident site and 10 miners were rescued, it said adding nine people have been arrested for covering up the mishap.

Police said the owners of the coal mine tried to cover up the severity of the accident by declaring that only six miners were missing.

At least 64 people were killed and 84 others went missing when an underground blast ripped through a mine in central China's Henan province on Wednesday.
___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1644 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:05 pm
Subject: China Mine Blast Toll at 66, Hope Fades for Trapped
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China Mine Blast Toll at 66, Hope Fades for Trapped

Friday, October 22, 2004 7:51 a.m. ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Rescue teams pulled two more bodies from the rubble of China's worst coal mine disaster in years but were struggling on Friday to reach 82 miners still trapped. The gas explosion is known to have killed 66.

Anxious relatives crowded outside the Daping mine in central Henan province but officials held out scant hope of finding anyone alive.

The blast on Wednesday caused part of the mine's roof to collapse. It was one of three mining disasters to hit the country that day.

President Hu Jintao had called for answers, the People's Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said in a front-page article.

China has the world's biggest and most dangerous coal mine industry that has expanded without regulation to fuel the fastest economic growth of any major economy.

More than 4,000 people work at the Daping mine and scores of employees and their families live nearby and have relatives among the missing, Xinhua news agency said in a report from the scene.

"This morning I received a phone call. The caller simply asked me to come to Daping. Immediately I sensed a disaster. I hurried here by bike," said the uncle of Li Panren, one of the missing.

Rescuers in orange uniforms hurried to the site and weeping family members watched as bodies wrapped in green canvas sacks were carried away.

But deaths were not confined to the Henan mine.

The China News Service said 29 workers were missing at a coal pit in northern Hebei province after it was flooded on Wednesday. A gas leak in a coal mine killed 12 people in southwestern Chongqing municipality the same day.

And on Friday, a blast at a coal mine in the southwestern province of Guizhou killed five people and left eight missing.

Deaths in China's coal mine accidents hit 4,153 in the first nine months of this year, down 630 from the same period last year, the State Administration of Work Safety said.

But analysts say the real figure could be higher, with many mine-related deaths going unreported.

All coal mines of the Zhengmei Group -- to which the Daping mine belonged -- were ordered on Friday to halt production for safety inspections while other coal mines in the province were told to improve safety oversight, Xinhua said.

The state-owned Zhengmei Group produces 6.6 million tons of coal annually, and Xinhua quoted experts as saying the production stoppage would affect supplies to about a dozen power plants.

HOPES SLIM

A total of 298 of 446 miners working underground at the time of the Daping mine blast escaped.

Most of the dead were killed by suffocation and the 82 missing were in a shaft 200-300 meters (660-980 ft) underground.

Of 21 in hospital with injuries, Xinhua said three were still in serious condition.

Li Hongshan, a production official at the mine, said rescuers had reduced the gas density in the mine to normal and repaired a passageway to speed the movement of rescuers, Xinhua said.

However, communication links had yet to be established with several sections of the mine and hopes of bringing the trapped miners out alive were slim, it said.

Sun Huashan, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, said on Thursday the accident exposed the vulnerability of China's coal industry.

Sun said mines were pushing production levels beyond limits partly because of the short supply to feed China's voracious energy demands.

Premier Wen Jiabao famously visited a coal mine and shared a meal of dumplings with miners in 2003, but leaders have struggled to impose stricter controls despite their alarm at the death of thousands of workers.

Electricity generated from coal supplies three-quarters of China's energy needs, which have outstripped supply.

"To maximize profits and minimize costs, mines are reluctant to invest more in measures to ensure work safety," Xinhua quoted Li Dun, a sociologist at Beijing's Qinghua University, as saying.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1645 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 1:58 pm
Subject: Hopes fade for China's mine blast survivors
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Hopes fade for China's mine blast survivors
October 22, 2004
 
Beijing - Rescue teams scrambling to reach 84 trapped miners after one of China's worst mine disasters in years pulled two more bodies from the rubble on Friday, leaving the toll from the blast at 64, state media said.

Anxious relatives crowded outside the Daping mine in central Henan province but officials held out scant hope of finding anyone alive after the gas explosion caused part of the mine's roof to collapse in one of three mining disasters to hit the country on Wednesday.

President Hu Jintao had called for answers after the tragedy, the People's Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said in a front-page article.

China has the world's biggest and most dangerous coal mine industry that has expanded without regulation to fuel the fastest economic growth of any major world economy.
 
The deaths were not confined to the Henan mine. Chinese media says that 29 workers were missing at a coal pit in northern Hebei province after it was flooded on Wednesday. A gas leak in a coal mine killed 12 people in south-western Chongqing municipality the same day.

More than 4 000 people work at the Daping mine and scores of employees and their families live nearby and have relatives among the missing, Xinhua news agency said in a report from the scene.

"This morning I received a phone call. The caller simply asked me to come to Daping. Immediately I sensed a disaster. I hurried here by bike," said the uncle of Li Panren, one of the missing.

Another missing worker, Liu Hongbin, had been a carpenter before he took the job as a miner four years ago as a means to repay his debts, Xinhua said.

Sirens wailed, rescuers in orange uniforms hurried to the site from surrounding areas and weeping family members watched as bodies wrapped in green canvas sacks were carried away.

A total of 298 of 446 miners working underground at the time of the blast escaped. But scores more died, most of them from suffocation, and 84 were still missing in a shaft 200-300 metres underground.

Li Hongshan, a production official at the mine, said rescuers had reduced the gas density in the mine to normal and repaired a passageway to speed the flow of rescuers, Xinhua said.

However, communication links had yet to be established with several sections of the mine and hopes of bringing the trapped miners out alive were slim, it said.

Sun Huashan, deputy director of the state administration of work safety, said on Thursday the accident exposed the vulnerability of China's coal industry.

Sun said mines were pushing production levels beyond limits partly because of the short supply to feed China's voracious energy demands. Overloaded mines were more vulnerable to accidents.

Premier Wen Jiabao famously visited a coal mine and shared a meal of dumplings with miners in 2003, but leaders have struggled to impose stricter controls despite their alarm at the death of thousands of workers.

Electricity generated from coal supplies three-quarters of China's energy needs, which have outstripped supply.

"To maximise profits and minimise costs, mines are reluctant to invest more in measures to ensure work safety," said Li Dun, a sociologist at Beijing's Qinghua University, as saying.

Deaths from coal mine accidents hit 4 153 in the first nine months of this year, down 630 from the same period last year, the state administration of work safety said. But analysts say the real figure could be higher, with many mine-related deaths going unreported.

"Senior leaders urgently asked local officials and departments to take all measures to rescue the trapped workers, investigate the cause of the accident, prepare for relief work and ensure stability in the area," the People's Daily said.

___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1646 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:01 pm
Subject: 76 dead in two China mine blasts
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76 dead in two China mine blasts
October 22, 2004
 
The worst China’s mine explosion has left at least 64 people dead in the northern province of Henan. The rescue service has been trying to safe 84 workers which still trapped under ground.
 
Second mine blast in the southwestern city of Chongqing has killed 12 people while one person is missing.
 
China is the world's biggest consumer and producer of coal; nevertheless it has problems with mine safety. More than 6,200 accidents have been occurred this year and about 8,000 people have been killed. Most miners come from poor rural areas with high unemployment, and are willing to jeopardize their lives to earn a living.
___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1647 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:15 pm
Subject: Death toll in China mine blast reaches 77; search for survivors continues
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Death toll in China mine blast reaches 77; search for survivors continues
October 23, 2004
 
BEIJING : The death toll from a devastating coal mine gas explosion in central China's Henan province rose to 77 as rescuers continued to search for any survivors, state media reported.

Efforts were continuing round the clock to recover 71 others still listed as officially missing, although officials have acknowledged that hopes of any of them being pulled out alive are extremely slim.
 
Xinhua news agency said that the bodies of 11 miners had been recovered from the pit overnight after Wednesday's blast.

Rescuers were getting closer to the site of the underground explosion some 300 metres (1,000 feet) underground and around 3.5 kilometres (about two miles) from the mine head.

The accident was one of the worst in recent memory for China's notoriously dangerous mines, where lax safety practices are blamed for the deaths of thousands of miners every year.
___________________________________________________________
United States Mine Rescue Association
www.usmra.com

#1648 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:11 pm
Subject: State Council's working team set up for coal mine gas blast in C.China
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State Council's working team set up for coal mine gas blast in C.China
2004-10-23 02:11:16

    ZHENGZHOU, Oct. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- A working team of the State Council was set up to look into the coal mine gas blast in Central China's Henan Province Friday morning, according to sources with the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS).

    The group consists of two teams, an investigation team and an experts' team, who will take charge of the cause analysis, duty confirmation and settlement suggestions for the accident. The twoteams will begin to work on Saturday.

    So far 66 people have died and 82 remain missing in the blast that occurred at 10:47 p.m. Wednesday in Daping Mine of Zhengmei Group, which is located in Xinmi of the province.

    The accident has prompted the provincial government to work on safety supervision and examination on major production fields of the province, including mining industry, construction and transportation, said sources with the local government.

    Wang Xianzheng, deputy director of the work safety commission of the State Council, and director of the SAWS and State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, is directing the investigation.Deputy directors will be officials from the Ministry of Supervision, the State Development and Reform Commission, All-china Federation of Trade Unions and local official of the Henan provincial government, said Huang Yi, director of the Department of Regulation of the SAWS.

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#1649 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:19 pm
Subject: Stillwater miners lauded for safety
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Stillwater miners lauded for safety

The spring of 2001 was a heartbreaker for Stillwater Mining Co. Within the span of three months, three miners were killed in mining accidents.

Since that devastating spring, the mine has made a turnaround so noteworthy that David Lauriski, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety, paid a visit to the Nye mine Thursday to recognize its employees.

"This is the best part of my job," Lauriski said after a day spent congratulating miners, management and board members. "What I saw were people proud of what's happening here, proud of the attention they're getting, the attention they deserve."

The good news has been three years in the making. Stillwater's safety record had been running twice as high as the national average, Lauriski said. Now it's down to half the national average.

"You're a part of a growing trend in this country," he said, noting that the mining industry nationwide saw a 34 percent reduction in fatalities and a 20 percent decline in reportable injuries over the past four years. "But you guys did it much faster."

The deaths in the spring of 2001 were a pivotal time for the mine's management as CEO Frank McAllister had just taken over.

"The first one stunned us all. The second one doubled that," McAllister said. "The third one, we were gut shot."

The spin-off from that spring resulted in a safety process that involved - and continues to involve - the entire work force at Stillwater, from the senior-most employee to the newest hourly worker, said Steve Wood, Stillwater safety director. Wood was working at the East Boulder mine when the first fatality occurred. Within two months, McAllister had brought him to Columbus and named him the first director specifically in charge of safety for Stillwater's whole operation.

"We needed an overall safety manager to instill a process to (bring us to) where we are now," McAllister said. "It began then. It should have begun before."

The mine's poor safety record was not limited to fatalities.

For years, the mine's rate of reportable injuries far exceeded the national average. That record caught the attention of Lauriski, who had just come on board with MSHA that same spring. It quickly became apparent to him that mine safety could be enhanced if MSHA broadened its role beyond enforcement. He introduced a concept that would integrate enforcement with improved training and technical support.

Lauriski described the first meeting between MSHA and Stillwater as uncomfortable at best.

"It's this way or the highway. That's how we had been viewed," Lauriski said. "I saw this as an opportunity to let our people excel and take down those barriers."

Results were not immediate. In fact, following that deadly spring, Stillwater saw a significant spike in citations from MSHA.

"We had to move beyond that," Lauriski said. "It wasn't long before we started to see some process changes."

In the intervening years, MSHA has worked with Stillwater on underground noise abatement, reductions in diesel emissions and training. The agency's involvement has also reinforced the mine's own focus on safety.

"We've always said, safety first, production will follow," McAllister said. "The problem is, it takes more than knowing what is right and believing. It takes several years to form a process."

Wood set out with a strategy that increased safety training and heightened standards in the workplace. Hazard recognition, planned self-inspections and an emphasis on providing timely communications among employees were also adopted.

"Probably one of the biggest focuses has been analysis of the work task," he said. Critical to the success of the analysis process was the involvement of the hourly workers and supervisors, Wood said.

"We consider them the experts on the job," Wood said.

The process also drew union workers and management together for a Joint Health and Safety Committee. The purpose of the committee is to address issues and get them corrected, said Brad Shorey, president of the Local 8-0001 Paper, Allied Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International, the union at Stillwater. Safety was also covered in the union's new contract, just negotiated this summer. The contract required that one full-time, hourly union employee serve as a safety rep empowered to identify violations and hazards and get them changed, he said.

Yet another offshoot of the safety program was the creation of a group that refers to itself as SMART - Stillwater Mine Accident Reduction Team. The group consists of hourly employees and supervisors who assist work teams and supervisors with health and safety issues.

Sharon McCave, an underground equipment operator with 15 years experience, has been a SMART rep since last spring.

"I can remember, looking back at some of the stupid things we used to do. It's good it's been brought to our attention," she said. "The culture has slowly changed."

One of SMART's objectives was to rid the workplace of near-miss accidents, like slipping in an oil spill, she said.

"You look not at what did happen but what could have happened," she said.

The new emphasis on safety has permeated nearly every aspect at SMC, from its newsletter to the board room. The newsletter boasts the winner of the Safety Slogan Contest - Jason Mares won for his G.E.T. SAFE message - and the board members promote safety by increasing accountability for the entire company, Wood said.

The bottom line has been a significant reduction in injuries, a 60 percent drop in reportable injuries and a 70 percent decline in serious injuries, he said.

When it comes to safety, however, no one is ready to rest on laurels. Lauriski sets his goal at zero injuries and fatalities for the mining industry. McAllister said SMC still has to do better.

"It will come into the culture over time - if you stick with it," he said.

___________________________________________________________
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#1650 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:41 pm
Subject: China mine toll rises to 78 dead, 71 missing
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China mine toll rises to 78 dead, 71 missing
23 Oct 2004 11:02:50 GMT
Source: Reuters
 
BEIJING, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The death toll from a mine blast in central China has risen to 78, with rescuers holding out little hope for 71 people still missing, state media said on Saturday.

The blast at the Daping mine in Henan province on Wednesday was one of a spate of mine disasters that struck China this week, throwing the spotlight back on an accident-riddled industry that has claimed more than 4,000 lives this year.

"Rescuers are continuing their round-the-clock efforts in search of the 71 miners who are still missing, though knowing the survival chances for the trapped are quite slim," the Xinhua news agency quoted rescue director Song Jiancheng as saying.

In another mine tragedy, 29 workers were missing at a coal pit in northern Hebei province after it was flooded on Wednesday, the same day that a gas leak in a coal mine killed 12 people in southwestern Chongqing municipality.

Rescuers were trying to drain water from the Hebei mine but had scant hope of finding survivors, the Xinhua news agency said.

"Rescue workers have searched underground for the victims several times, but found no clues," Xinhua quoted rescue official Ji Jinchang as saying.

And on Friday, a blast at a coal mine in the southwestern province of Guizhou killed 15 people and injured five, while a gas leak killed four miners in the central province of Hubei, Xinhua said.

China's coal industry, already the world's biggest and most hazardous, provides the main fuel for the world's seventh-biggest economy, and has expanded with little regulation to keep up with booming demand.

Daping is part of state-owned Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group, which produces about 6.6 million tons of coal annually. The company shut down all its mines on Friday for safety inspections.

Alarmed at the carnage in the industry, Beijing has struggled to impose better safety rules, but many mines are run illegally or with local officials turning a blind eye.

Coal mine deaths hit 4,153 in the first nine months of this year, down 630 from the same period last year, official figures show. Analysts say the real figure is probably higher, with many mine-related deaths going unreported.
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#1651 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:55 am
Subject: Deepening reform after coal mine accident
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Deepening reform after coal mine accident
2004-10-24 08:37:18

    XINMI, Henan, Oct. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The fatal gas blast in Dapingcoal mine, Henan Province, has left 79 dead and 69 others missing with slim chance of survival by Saturday afternoon, while another 57 people were reported killed or missing in three other coal mine accidents this week.

    At 22:10 Wednesday night, the explosion triggered off by a gas outburst ripped through Daping coal mine. Only 298 out of the 446 miners working underground escaped.

    Some 50 minutes earlier, a coal mine gas blast left six people dead and another seven still missing in Chongqing, southwest China.

    At about 6:00 Wednesday morning, 29 miners were trapped in a coal mine stricken by flooding in Wu'an City of Hebei Province, central China, and there has had no report of survival so far.

    Two days later, 15 miners were added to the national death toll of coal mine accidents when a gas explosion took place Friday in Guizhou Province, southwest China, which also left five others injured.

    Some ten hours after the Daping accident, Sun Huashan, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, announced at a press conference in Beijing that death toll of coal mine accidents in the January-August period this year totaled 3,457. Sun confirmed the Daping accident was the deadliest one so far this year.

    "Four fatal accidents in no more than one week, it's unimaginable," said Li Xiguang, a professor with Qinghua University, Friday. "The fact that fatal accidents take place as frequently as this indicates new problems emerging in the fast economic growth."

    Prof. Li, who once worked as a coal miner, said that the central government attaches great importance to the principle of "putting the people first" and work safety. However, many coal mines were so shortsighted as to fail to invest enough in safety facilities while exploiting the backward aging equipment for as much profits as possible, which explains the frequent accidents here and there.

    "There are still a lot of loopholes in safety management of coal mines throughout the country," Sun said, adding that most of the coal mines have to overload themselves in production partly because of the short supply at the coal market.

    Actually, overload has become a major approach for output growth in the coal industry in China, the world's biggest consumer and producer of the fossil fuel.

    According to the administration, around one third of state-owned coal mines are overloaded, which brings them closer to accidents and puts pressure on sustainable development.

    China's coal production is forecast to top 1.9 billion tons this year, surpassing the current production capacity.

    Many observers reached by Xinhua Friday blamed enterprises' poor awareness of production safety as the major factor behind thefrequent accidents.

    "Driven by interests, many companies just want to maximize profits and minimize costs, and are reluctant to invest more in measures to ensure work safety," said Li Dun, a sociologist with Qinghua University.

    China now has more than 300 million surplus workers and they appear as the weak group in the employment market. "No matter how dangerous the work is and how low the pay is, miners dare not say anything about it because mine owners have a long list of job-seekers in hand," said Li.

    Li called on the government to deepen reform for narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas, between different regions and between different industries in line with the principle of puttingpeople first and achieving sustainable development.

    "This is the only way out if we want to prevent accidents from occurring in coal mines at such a high frequency," the scholar added.

    The Daping mine, affixed to state-owned Zhengzhou Coal IndustryGroup, has suffered from three fatal accidents before, and other mines of the group also witnessed frequent occurrence of accidents.

    "This indicated the poor management of state-owned enterprises," said Li, adding that accelerating the establishment of a modern corporate system and the reform of property rights will help improve the capability of enterprises to deal with work safety.

    Ding Yuanzhu, professor with Beijing University, linked the accidents to the enhancement of the Party's governance capability. He said that dealing with all kinds of crisis in a proper way has become an important part of the governance capability of the Communist Party of China.

    "But some local governments are barely not aware of the importance of risk management for China's economic and social development, and they are not duly competent in building a harmonious society," said Prof. Ding.

    "Governments at all levels should learn something from the Daping mine accident and think over seriously what should be done to better serve the people," said the professor.

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#1652 From: "Rob McGee" <usmra@...>
Date: Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:08 pm
Subject: Rescue efforts going on for central China mine tragedy with no good news
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Rescue efforts going on for central China mine tragedy with no good news
2004-10-24 02:38:39

    ZHENGZHOU, Oct. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- As of Sunday, no good news has come to family members of trapped coal miners in the gas explosion at the Daping Coal Mine in central China's Henan Province.

    In the past day, rescuers found three more bodies underground, bringing the death toll of the disaster in Xinmi City to 82. Thereis no evidence of survivors, rescue organizers said Sunday night.

    The explosion occurred at a coal mine under the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group, or Zhengmei Group, at about 10:10 p.m. Wednesday. Of the 446 miners working underground, 298 managed to escape. Zhengmei is a listed state-owned company based near Zhengzhou, theprovincial capital.

    More than 1,300 family members of victims have traveled to the coal mine, awaiting news of their loved ones.

    As identification of the bodies continues, compensation has begun to be issued to the families.

    Six victims' families have received compensation. Other families of miners who were confirmed dead are still negotiating with the mine, sources said.

    Local police are conducting DNA tests on the 15 bodies that have yet to be identified, said Yu Ertao, an executive of the Daping Coal Mine.

    Rescuers are still searching for the other 66 missing miners.

    "It's been a hard day for us rescuers," said Liu Xinshu, head of the rescue brigade of the company.

    The blast ravaged three mining areas. The ensuing collapse has blocked tunnels and damaged electric cables and transport equipment. Both the temperature and the density of the harmful gas remain dangerously high, making it difficult for rescue work to continue, said Liu.

    He said that 215 rescuers, working in three 12-hour shifts, have restored 12 underground ventilation stations and cleared debris at 11 collapsed tunnel sections.

    Much of the underground monitoring system, however, has yet to be restored. Rescue teams therefore have had to resort to less accurate, above-ground mobile monitoring equipment, he said.

    "This was the worst coal mine accident I've seen in more than 30 years, and the rescue work is a tough challenge to us," he said.

    China had 4,153 deaths from coal mine accidents in the first nine months of this year.

    Twelve hours after the tragedy, Sun Huashan, deputy director ofthe State Administration of Work Safety, said at a press conference in Beijing that the blast was the most serious workplace accident in the country this year.

    Oct. 20 was a "dark Wednesday" for China's coal industry. Within 16 hours, three coal accidents, including the one at Daping,occurred in the country. At about 6:00 a.m., 29 miners were trapped in a coal mine flooding accident in Wu'an County of north China's Hebei Province. Those miners are still missing. Also, an hour before the disaster at Daping, a gas explosion killed seven coal miners and left seven missing in Qijiang County in Chongqing,a municipality in the southwest.

    "There are still a lot of loopholes in safety management in coal mines throughout the country," Sun said, adding that the Chinese government attaches great importance to work safety.

    Overload in production to meet market demand can be blamed for the frequent occurrence of coal mine accidents in the country, said Sun. One third of state-owned coal mines have to work overtime, which not only adds to the danger of accidents, but also poses pressure to the sustainable development of natural resources,he said.

    China is the biggest producer and consumer of coal in the world. The country is expected to produce 1.9 billion tons of coal this year.

    Li Dun, a sociologist with Beijing-based Qinghua University, said that some businesses prioritize economic gains while caring little or nothing about the safety of workers.

    To see fewer workplace tragedies, Li said, the country should carry out the "scientific conception of development" raised by its central authorities, which stresses "sustainable development and human value."

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