Two accidents on construction sites and one in a coal mine left 13 dead and at least four injured over the weekend.

At 10:00 AM on Saturday morning, there was a fire on a ramp support at the construction site of the Binshuixidao cloverleaf interchange on the Tianjin expressway.

Eight people were killed, according to local sources. Fire fighters at the site said the fire has been extinguished, but its cause is under investigation.

In a coal mine in the northwest province of Shaanxi, four miners fell down a shaft and died on Friday, according to local sources.

At 6:00 AM at the Jinniu Coalmine in Yulin City, the steel rope suspending a lift cage in the shaft broke as the four were descending. They fell to the bottom of the 124-meter-deep shaft.

They were taken to hospital immediately, but all four died. Further investigation of the accident is underway. The mine, located in the Shilatan village of the city, is state-owned.

In south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a steel roof frame collapsed at a construction site on Sunday afternoon. Local workplace safety officials confirmed that one was dead and four injured.

Ten workers were hoisting a steel roof in Wucunling in Nanning, the regional capital, at 3:00 PM when the roof frame suddenly fell.

One was killed on the spot and, of the four rushed to a local hospital, two were reported to be in a critical condition.

The surviving workers said most of them did not wear safety helmets because their employer had provided none. An investigation into the cause of the accident is underway.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2005)