BEIJING: Eighteen people were killed and three injured in an explosion at a mine in central China, an official said Saturday, in the latest deadly accident to hit the nation's coal industry. The tragedy struck Friday afternoon at a mine in Chenzhou city in Hunan province when a detonator and explosives warehouse blew up, an employee at the city's coal industry bureau, who would only give his surname Li, told. "Up to this morning we have confirmed there are 18 dead and three injured," he said. Li said the victims were in dormitories next to the warehouse at the time of the explosion.According to the official Xinhua news agency, a further two people were missing, and police have said the detonators and explosives might have been illegally bought and stored. China's coalmines are notoriously dangerous. Official figures show that more than 3,200 workers died in collieries last year, but independent observers say the actual figure could be much higher, as many accidents are covered up.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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