【09.11.23 泰晤士报】Widows scuffle with police after 104 killed in Chinese mine

渔音谦谦

Women said that they had not got answers over the blast. Officials admitted they were slow to respond




Rescuers enter the mine to search for 4 missing men. The chances of them being alive were 'slim'


Grieving women screamed and scuffled with police as they demanded answers about their missing husbands after 104 miners were killed in China’s worst pit disaster in two years.
Police and security guards tried to remove some of the hysterical women from outside the mining company offices. But officials later admitted that they had been slow to provide information to relatives desperate to learn the fate of their menfolk.
Officials held out scant hope of finding any of the last four missing men alive, saying that they were believed to be working near the centre of the explosion that tore through the Xinxing mine near the border with Russia in the early hours of Saturday.
Liu Shujiu, whose 38-year-old husband Zhang Shulai was among the victims, broke down in tears as she sat in a chair inside the mine office. She wailed: “Why haven't they told us anything? We had to hear from others at the mine.”

Mining officials brought her rice at the weekend but starved of her information about her husband, one of 528 miners who were underground when gas began to seep through the tunnels, leading to a blast that was felt for miles around.
She told the Associated Press: “We thought the state mines were safe. Why did he die?” She has yet to break the news of the tragedy to the couple’s nine-year-old daughter. “How do I tell her that her father is not coming home?”
A mine official tried to calm the angry crowd by holding up a list of the miners names. He said: “There are certainly dead. You don't take it well, we know. But there's a process. I feel as bad as you.” He paused before admitting to an error in failing to inform families sooner. “In this we were wrong.”
Secrecy is the routine method in China for dealing with disasters in part because officials try to limit reporting any bad news to the public and in part because there is no tradition in the Communist Party of public accountability. The disaster was the final item on the main television evening news and focused on a meeting to determine what happened without showing any footage of the mine or anxious relatives.
The disaster, the deadliest in two years, highlights the poor safety several years after the Government launched a campaign to try to minimise casualties in the world’s most dangerous mines. A preliminary finding blamed lax management at the state-owned mine – usually the safest in China – and said those responsible would be punished.
That was scant comfort to those still seeking to learn the fate of missing loved ones.
Another woman stood outside the mine with tears streaming down her face. “I haven’t had any news. My husband was only 42." A second woman complained that she had received no word about the fate of her younger brother. She cried: "He was my little brother. It's been three days and still we haven't had any news."



原文地址：http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6928247.ece