11 miners dead, 96 trapped in Chinese mine blast

BEIJING – At least 11 miners died and nearly 100 remained trapped underground after a gas blast ripped through a coal mine in northern China, state media said Sunday.
The official Xinhua News Agency said 96 miners were trapped in a pre-dawn blast at a mine belonging to the Shanxi Jiaomei Group in Gujiao city near Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province.
It said 340 miners were rescued, but 11 of those died in a hospital. Another 24 were seriously injured, Xinhua said.
An official with the provincial government duty office confirmed the accident, but did not have any details. He would give only his surname Chen.
The Shanxi Jiaomei Group is China's largest producer of coking coal, and operates 28 mines.
Although China has worked to cut mine accidents by closing more than a 1,000 small, dangerous mines last year, the country's mining industry is still the world's deadliest. About 3,200 miners died in accidents last year, a 15 percent improvement over the previous year.
Many of the smaller mines have lax safety measures, and are plagued by fires, explosions, floods and other accidents.

BEIJING - The number of children in China sickened by dairy products tainted with the banned industrial chemical melamine has jumped to nearly 53,000, the government said Sunday as it vowed to crack down on those responsible for one of China's worst food safety scandals in years.

More than 80 percent of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger, the Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site late Sunday. Four children have died and 104 of the hospitalized children are in serious condition.

Another 39,965 children received outpatient treatment at hospitals and were considered "basically recovered," the ministry said.

BEIJING - China said Sunday the number of children sickened by baby formula tainted with the banned industrial chemical melamine has doubled to nearly 12,900 as the government confronts a scandal over widespread contamination of the milk supply.

More than 80 percent of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger, the Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site late Sunday. Four children have died.

The ministry said most of the children sickened consumed infant formula from one company, the Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co. The dairy is at the center of one of China's worst food safety scandals in years.