On January 10, 2021, at 2 p.m., an explosion occurred at the Hushan (笏山) gold mine in Qixia, Yantai City, Shandong Province, trapping 22 people underground. As of 24 January 2021, 11 people had been rescued.
On January 10th, at 2 p.m., the Yantai Qixia gold mine in Shandong Province exploded at 240 meters from the wellhead, when there were no operators, 13 operators at 698 meters from the wellhead and 9 operators at 648 meters from the wellhead. As a result of the explosion caused damage between the shaft ladders, cages can not function properly, communication system damage, 22 people trapped underground. However, due to insufficient estimates of rescue difficulties, the gold mine company did not report the situation to the Qixia Municipal Emergency Management Bureau until 20:05 on 11 January. On January 11th, at 20:48, the Qixia municipal committee of the CCP reported the situation to the Yantai municipal committee of the CCP.[1][2]
At 21:45, after receiving the report, the Shandong Provincial Committee of the CCP established the Integrated Emergency Rescue Command of the provinces, cities and counties, which set up seven working groups on on-site rescue, technical experts, logistics support, media liaison, accident investigation, reception of miners' families, medical treatment and epidemic prevention and control. Song Yuanming (宋元明) and Li Wanjiang (李万疆), deputy director of the State Mine Safety Supervision Bureau, were connected by video link that night to guide the rescue effort. On the morning of January 12, Liu Jiayi (刘家义), secretary of the Communist Party of Shandong Province, who was attending a seminar for leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial levels in Beijing, and Li Ganjie (李干杰), deputy secretary of the provincial party committee and governor of Shandong Province, asked President Xi to take a leave of absence and return to Shandong province to rush to the scene of the Hushan gold mine accident. Meanwhile, Huang Yuzhi (黄玉治), vice minister of emergency management of the People's Republic of China and head of the State Administration of Mine Safety and Supervision, arrived at the scene at noon on January 12 to guide the rescue. Wang Shujian (王书坚), executive vice-governor of Shandong provincial government, arrived at the scene on the morning of January 12.[3]
On January 12th, at 19:00, the accident scene rescue command held a second press conference, Yantai City Emergency Management Bureau Director Sun Shufu (孙树福) informed the latest progress of the rescue. On the one hand, speed up the clean-up of the wind well bog obstacles, on the other hand, speed up the ground drilling, open up a life channel.[4] At 12:00 on the 14th, the rescue site added 43 rescue teams, emergency rescue command mobilized a total of 11 rescue teams, 393 rescue workers, all kinds of machinery and equipment more than 70 sets to participate in the accident rescue.[5]
On the afternoon of January 17, the 3rd life-saving hole was opened.[6] At about 22 o'clock in the evening, rescue workers through the 3rd drilling into the feed. By the lead drop with traction rope, slowly decentralized, there are flashlights, nutrition liquid, medicine, pen and paper. At about 22:46 on 17 January, the feed was delivered to the end.[7] On 17 January, at about 23:40, rescuers pulled back the rope and found that all supplies had been removed and a note had been returned.[8]
At noon on January 19th, the Health Emergency Office of the National Health and Health Commission led five national experts to the area to strengthen the rescue force. The national expert group consists of Beijing Xiehe Hospital, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital and Beijing Anding Hospital.[9]
On January 22, the Accident Emergency Rescue Command informed that life-detecting continued to be carried out at the 1st borehole 637 meters from the wellhead, and no signs of life were found. 3rd drilling well water stopping operations completed, 4th drilling on the power supply to achieve bottom lighting.[10]
On January 13th, the third press conference of the rescue headquarters at the scene of the explosion at the Qixia Lushan gold mine in Shandong Province was held, and Li Bo (李波), deputy mayor of Yantai City, said at the press conference that the person responsible for the accident had been brought under control.[11] On January 13, Shandong Provincial Emergency Management Department issued a notice in the province to quickly carry out centralized law enforcement activities.[12]
Because of the important leadership responsibilities in the 30 hours of late reporting of the accident, the Shandong Provincial Committee of CCP decided to remove Yao Xiuxia (姚秀霞) from her post as party secretary of the CCP Qixia City Committee and remove Zhu Tao (朱涛) from his post as deputy secretary and mayor of the CCP Qixia City Committee to cooperate with the accident investigation.[13]
37°20′05″N 120°43′54″E / 37.33466°N 120.73158°E / 37.33466; 120.73158
