A gas explosion at the Liushenyu coal mine in China's Shanxi province, owned by the Tongzhou Group, has claimed the lives of at least 90 people. It is the deadliest mining accident in China in the past decade. Around 250 workers were underground when the explosion struck on Friday evening.

By Saturday morning, authorities had evacuated at least 201 miners, with 123 in hospital care. The rescue ran for nearly 20 hours, shift after shift without a break. State media reported that carbon monoxide levels in the mine had passed critical thresholds, making it harder to evacuate those who were still alive in the deep tunnels.

President Xi Jinping issued an order for urgent rescue efforts and a thorough investigation. „All regions and prefectures must learn from this disaster," he said. Standard Chinese rhetoric for such situations - but a toll of 90 dead pushes the state to do something concrete, at least for the foreign audience.

One of the injured miners, Wang Yong, described the moment: „I shouted for people to run as we tried to escape. I saw people choked by smoke, thrown to the ground, and then I lost consciousness too." He came to roughly an hour later and helped evacuate others. A scene Chinese state media rarely shows - real trauma, not propaganda heroism.

The authorities have placed a „responsible person" under supervision, in line with the law. That is China's ritual response after every major industrial accident - one director is pulled, one inspector is removed, a criminal procedure drags on for years and usually ends with a moderate sentence. A system that has produced hundreds of such arrests over the past two decades and changed nothing substantive. Chinese mines remain among the world's most dangerous, and explosions of this scale will keep coming - until the day the country's energy mix no longer depends on cheap coal. That's the price of the „economic miracle" the Balkans shouldn't envy.