In China, on May 22, 2026, an explosion in a coal mine in Shanxi province caused one of the most serious disasters in the country’s mining sector in recent years. The provisional toll from the accident is 82 confirmed dead, 9 missing and 123 people hospitalized. This was reported by the Chinese news agency Xinhua, citing the county emergency management bureau. At the time of the explosion, 247 people were present in the mine.
The explosion occurred at 7.29pm local time on Friday 22 May (12.29pm in Italy) in the mine managed by the group Shanxi Tongzhou Coal. Provincial authorities have mobilized 755 rescuers and medical personnel, and search operations are still ongoing at the time of writing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping intervened in the hours following the incident with an official note, reported by CNNwith which he ordered “every possible effort” to be made for relief efforts, to reduce casualties to a minimum and to launch a “rigorous” investigation into the causes. According to Xinhua, the managers of the company that managed the mine have already been placed under surveillance by the authorities. The causes of the explosion are still unknown and the responsibilities and exact dynamics are still under investigation.
A detail reported by local media concerns the days before the explosion when local authorities were alerted that safety limits for carbon monoxide in the mine were exceeded. Furthermore, as the New York Timesthe Liushenyu mine, was already under special observation. In 2024, it was listed, along with 1,127 other facilities, on the list of 1,128 mines flagged for “serious safety risks” by China’s National Mining Safety Administration. Liushenyu, in particular, had been reported precisely for the high levels of gas present in the tunnels, a condition which, in coal wells, is the main risk factor for explosions like the one that occurred.
Shanxi province is the mining heart of China. According to data collected by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), China alone produces about half of the coal mined in the world, and Shanxi is the province that extracts the largest share, over a quarter of the national total.
This recent tragedy adds to a long list of deadly coal mining disasters in China. Although in the early 2000s accidents with over a hundred deaths were frequently recorded, over time safety standards have improved thanks to the unification of the sector and more stringent regulations. However, serious cases remain: in February 2023 the collapse of an open-pit mine in Inner Mongolia caused more than 50 deaths, in November 2024 an explosion in Shanxi caused 26 victims and again, in 2009, an explosion in a mine in Heilongjiang province, in the north-east of the country, caused over 100 deaths.
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