CHINA-INTERNAL: COAL MINE EXPLOSION IN SHAANXI
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72 hours after the explosion that blasted a section of the coal mine at Dajingta village in Shaanxi and claimed 14 lives and injured more than one-hundred people,reports of the tragedy have been blacked out of the official media. Just 14 newspapers across China ran any coverage of the explosion in Dajinta Village, and all of these published the text of the Xinhua release of October 25, 2016, verbatim. Not a single mainland newspaper nor major news websites even mentioned the incident subsequently. (Comment: Shaanxi province is one of China’s leading coal producers, and the city of Yulin, whose jurisdiction encompasses the site of the explosion of October 24, is at the very heart of the country’s energy industry. Hongkong's Oriental Daily estimates the value of Yulin city’s output of raw coal, natural gas, crude oil and other mineral resources as accounting for 30 percent of China’s total. Xinmin Township, in which the village of Dajingta is located, is a top producer of raw coal in the region. According to Sxcoal.com, an information website specialising in China’s coal industry, there are a total of 267 coal mines within the jurisdiction of Yulin. Of these, 35 are owned by the central or provincial governments, while 232 are owned by governments at lower levels.)
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