Still shocked to hear the news of four colleagues’ deaths, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Khanh, a worker at Thong Nhat Coal Company, Quang Ninh, lying on his hospital bed, said that after the explosion, he was thrown about 30 meters away.
7 workers luckily escaped death in a methane gas fire at the mining workshop of Thong Nhat Coal Company (Cam Pha, Quang Ninh) in the early morning of April 3, and are being treated at Quang Ninh Provincial General Hospital.
At the hospital, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Khanh (38 years old, a production team worker at Thong Nhat Coal Company) was shocked to hear that four of his colleagues had died.
He said, at that time, he and his colleagues had just put materials into the furnace and on the way out about 100 meters, suddenly heard a loud explosion. The force of the explosion threw Mr. Khanh about 30 meters away in the tunnel.
Mr. Khanh recalls the terrifying moment when he was “blown away” 30 meters in the tunnel (Photo: PC).
“Luckily I wasn’t hit anywhere so I wasn’t seriously injured. It took a few minutes to calm down, I saw smoke and dust flying, we quickly ran to the tunnel door,” Mr. Khanh recalled the terrifying moment.
Also according to Mr. Khanh, when they escaped, the workers informed the company leaders. It only took a few minutes for the mine emergency team to arrive at the scene and search for victims.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh (45 years old, a transport worker of Thong Nhat Coal Company), after the loud explosion, his hat and flashlight were “blown away”. It took 2-3 minutes for Mr. Thanh to reshape the way out, then he and his colleagues quickly crawled out of the tunnel.
When mentioning the four unfortunate colleagues, Mr. Thanh’s voice choked up, he said, “The four of them were mining workers, working directly in the mirror, so they had an accident.”
At the time of the incident, Mr. Thanh and his colleagues were working to remove coal and impurities about 200m from the location of the four unfortunate workers. The tunnel where the incident occurred is 4.2m high and 6m wide.
Workers are being treated at Hai Duong Provincial General Hospital (Photo: PC).
As reported, at 0:20 on April 3 at Thong Nhat Coal Company of Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industry Group (TKV) in Cam Pha, Quang Ninh, an incident occurred at furnace mirror XV5-140 No. 2, mining workshop 2.
The excavated furnace has an area of 23m2, SVP-27 steel supports, support step of 0.5m/beam. The furnace has been excavated 240m/design 380m. Initial determination of the cause of the incident due to methane gas fire. The incident killed 4 workers and injured 7 others.
At 3:15 a.m., the search and rescue work ended.
Authorities at all levels and Thong Nhat Coal Company are coordinating and supporting the families of the victims to bring them home and take care of the funeral arrangements.
For each victim, Quang Ninh province provided initial support of 20 million VND/person; TKV Group supports 20 million VND/person and Vietnam Coal and Minerals Trade Union supports 20 million VND/person.