Eighteen people are trapped by a collapse in a gold mine in the Xinjiang region of northwest China. 40 were working at the mine in Yining county, about 100 kilometers from the border with Kazakhstan, when the collapse occurred on Saturday afternoon.
Twenty-two miners have been brought to the surface but 18 remain trapped. “A rescue operation is underway to recover the remaining miners,” Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
Mine safety has improved in recent decades, as has media coverage of serious accidents, many of which were once censored. But accidents still happen frequently in an industry where safety is often overlooked. In September 2021, 19 miners stranded after a coal mine collapse in the northwestern province of Qinghai were found dead after a lengthy search. But in December 2021, 20 miners were rescued from a flooded coal mine in northern Shanxi province, while two others died.