What happened

An underground gas explosion struck Shanxi Tongzhou Group's Liushenyu coal mine while 247 people were working below ground. At the rescue command's briefing late on 23 May, authorities reported 82 people killed, 128 injured and two still missing. Rescue teams faced flooded workings and inaccurate mine plans while searching individual roadways. Officials said their preliminary investigation had found major legal violations by the operator and ordered all four mines in the group to stop production for rectification. The Liushenyu mine had appeared on the National Mine Safety Administration's 2024 list of disaster-prone mines and was classified as a high-gas mine. The accident is included as a borderline upstream-energy record because coal mining sits outside the map's core pipeline, processing-plant and generation scope.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.