Hidden Tunnels and Muted Alarms: Inside China’s Deadliest Coal Mine Blast in a Decade

Just past 7 p.m. on May 22, a miner went underground to conduct a routine inspection at a coal mine operating on a three-shift system. By 10 a.m. the following day, his personnel tracking device showed he was still in the same underground location, a family member told Caixin. The miner had walked into a catastrophic gas explosion.

The blast occurred at 7:35 p.m. on May 22, at the Liushenyu Coal Mine in Qinyuan county, Shanxi province. According to an official press conference held the evening of May 23, there were 247 people working underground at the time of the explosion. The accident killed 82 people, left two missing, and hospitalized 128 with injuries as of May 23. Another 35 miners managed to return home uninjured.