BEIJING, Feb 15 (Reuters): A gas explosion in a coal mine in China's northeastern province of Liaoning has killed as many as 203 miners in the worst disaster to hit the country's disaster-plagued mining industry in at least 15 years.
The explosion, which occurred on Monday afternoon at the mine in Fuxin city, injured 22 and trapped 13, the official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
The blast occurred 242 metres (yards) below ground at about 3:00 p.m.
1230 IST yesterday at the Sujiawan colliery of the Fuxin coal industry group, it said, citing the Liaoning Coalmine Safety Supervision Bureau.
China's mining industry is the world's biggest and its most deadly.
The latest blast that killed at least 203 miners was the deadliest since 166 miners were killed in a gas explosion in northern Henan province last November.
China's coal mines, which provide the main fuel for the world's seventh-biggest economy, have an appalling safety record underscored by a series of major accidents last year, several within days of each other at the end of the year.
Last year, at least 5,000 people were killed in mining accidents.
China's leaders, including Premier Wen Jiabao, have pledged more high-level attention to work safety.
China last year produced 35 percent of the world's coal but reported 80 percent of global deaths in colliery accidents at a rate of three fatalities per million tonnes of coal.
The average Chinese miner produced 321 tonnes of coal, just 2.2 percent of what a miner in the more mechanised United States produced and 8.1 percent of what a miner in South Africa produced.
But the death rate in Chinese mines is 100 times that of U.S.
mines and 30 times that of South African mines, official media have reported.
The government has struggled to regulate thousands of small mines, but a chronic energy shortage and the lure of profits has led many mine operators to ignore orders to close dangerous pits.
Huge car bomb kills Lebanon's ex-PM Hariri BEIRUT, Feb 15 (Reuters): A huge car bomb killed Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, shocking a nation used to calm after its 1975-90 civil war and jolting the army into declaring a state of alert.
At least 14 others, including several of Hariri's bodyguards, died when his motorcade was blown up as it passed through an exclusive section of Beirut's seafront yesterday, four months after he resigned as prime minister.
Western powers and Middle East leaders hailed the 60-year-old billionaire for masterminding Lebanon's reconstruction after its civil war and expressed concern his death may destabilise Lebanon before general elections in May.
Opposition leaders said Syria, which keeps 14,000 troops here and plays a powerbroker role resented by some Lebanese, bore responsibility for Hariri's death.
But they stopped short of accusing Damascus of any outright involvement.
Former Economy Minister Basil Fuleihan was critically wounded in the blast, the biggest in Lebanon since the civil war ended.
It gouged a deep crater in the road outside the St George hotel, ripped facades from luxury buildings and set cars ablaze.
At least 135 other people were hurt, officials said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped the killing would not reignite the civil war.
President George W.
Bush was "shocked and angered," the White House said.
"It is imperative that the already fragile situation in the region should not be further destabilised," Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
The United States said it would consult with U.N.
Security Council members about taking punitive measures against those responsible for the death of a man it said "worked tirelessly to rebuild a free, independent and prosperous Lebanon." The 15-member Security Council planned a formal meeting on Tuesday about the killing as well as its resolution demanding Syrian troops get out of Lebanon.
Lebanese voices calling for Damascus to pull out its troops have grown louder since the Security Council passed its resolution.
Hariri had remained politically influential since his resignation and recently joined opposition calls for Syria to quit Lebanon.
In Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called the blast a "horrendous criminal act" and told Lebanese President Emile Lahoud no effort should be spared to find the killers.
"Syria regards this as an act of terrorism, a crime that seeks to destabilise (Lebanon)," Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah told Reuters by telephone.
Lebanon's army said it had gone on general alert, deployed patrols and set up checkpoints.
Patrols made up of three or four army vehicles drove through the largely empty streets of central Beirut, where shops were shut at the start of three days of official mourning for Hariri.
Soldiers armed with M-16 assault rifles were seen manning checkpoints at main streets in the capital.
Demonstrators accusing Syria of plotting the killing earlier threw stones at an office of the Lebanon branch of Syria's ruling party.
They also set fire to tyres and a picture of Syria's Assad outside the Baath Party office in Beirut.