At least “16 people” died when a fire broke out at the Shanjiaoshu coal mine in southwest China around 8:10 a.m. local time (0010 GMT) on Sunday, local authorities said.
The fire was extinguished, but “after checking, 16 people no longer show any signs of life,” authorities in the city of Panzhou, about 3,600 km southwest of Beijing, said in a press release posted on their website.
Preliminary findings indicated that “the conveyor belt caught fire,” the release said.
Although mining safety in China has improved in recent decades, accidents still occur frequently, often due to lax enforcement of safety regulations, especially at the most rudimentary sites.
In February, an open-cast mine collapsed in Inner Mongolia (northern China), killing 53 people. Dozens of people and vehicles were buried.
For months, authorities did not provide any information about the death toll and only announced in June that 53 people had died in the accident.