PUNCH
No fewer than 16 people have died in a fire that broke out at the Shanjiaoshu Coal Mine in China’s southwest at around 8:10 am on Sunday, local officials said.
The fire was extinguished but “after preliminary verification, 16 people have no vital signs”, the Panzhou City government said in a notice posted on its website.
“It was preliminarily determined that the conveyor belt caught fire,” the notice said.
The Panzhou City mine is about 3,600 kilometres (2,250 miles) southwest of the capital, Beijing.
