The explosion at the Xinxing coal mine, which belongs to the state-owned Heilongjiang Longmei Mining Holding Group, was the deadliest in Chinas mining industry in two years, and has highlighted how heavy demand for power-generating coal comes at a high human cost.

At the gates of the mining companys offices, family members and friends confronted mining officials with questions until some of them were escorted into an office by police, security guards and other officials.

“Why dont you tell us anything?” one shouted. “Not even a phone call!”

Inside the room, Liu Shujiu, whose 38-year-old husband Zhang Shulai was among the victims, broke down in tears as she sat in a chair

“Why havent they told us anything?” she wailed. “We had to hear from others at the mine.”

A mine official, who - like many Chinese officials - refused to give his name for fear of government reprisals, held up a list of miners names and tried to calm the crowd: “There are certainly dead. You dont take it well, we know. But theres a process. I feel as bad as you,” he said, pausing before admitting that the delay in informing family members was a mistake.

“In this, we were wrong,” he said.

Liu, who said mining officials had brought her rice but little information over the weekend, said officials have given families no information about the details and circumstances of the blast.

“We thought the state mines were safe. Why did he die?” she said. The couple have a 9-year-old daughter, whom she had not yet told. “How do I tell her that her father is not coming home?”

Another woman, whose husband Hou Yubin was among the dead, remained seated and silent. She was later laid across some chairs with an IV in her arm as a nurse hovered nearby.

Initial investigations showed the coal mine blast was due to the lack of proper management, Luo Lin, the head of Chinas State Administration of Work Safety, was quoted as telling CCTV on Monday.

Search and rescue efforts appeared to be over at the blast site by Monday morning.

In the wake of the explosion, the Xinxing mines director, deputy director and chief engineer were fired, said an employee, who refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The blast at the nearly 100-year-old mine in Heilongjiang (pronounced HAY-long-jeeahng) province, near the Russian border, shows the difficulties the central government faces in trying to improve safety. In recent years, it has shuttered or absorbed hundreds of smaller, private mines into state-owned operations, which are considered generally safer.

The government says the closure of about 1,000 smaller, often illegal mines last year has helped cut fatalities. The largest major mining accident in recent years occurred in September 2007, with 181 miners killed when shafts at two neighboring mines flooded in eastern Shandong province.

In another reminder of minings dangers, the death toll from a Sunday explosion at a mine in central Hunan Province rose to 11, with another three missing, Xinhua reported Monday. Rescue efforts are continuing at the Guojiawan mine in Huaihua city.

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According to the EPA, the agency has never used its authority to review a previously permitted project since Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972.

The permit was issued in 2007 for Mingo Logan Coals Spruce No. 1 mine, which is owned by St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc.

It would allow the company to fill valleys at the site with material removed to expose coal, a practice widely opposed by environmentalists.

The EPAs unprecedented move “reflects the magnitude and scale of anticipated direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse environmental impacts associated with this mountaintop removal mining operation,” Early wrote.

The project would be the largest authorized mountaintop removal operation in Appalachia and it would occur in a watershed where the EPA says many streams have been affected by previous mining. There are 12 more surface mining projects either proposed or authorized but not built in the same watershed.

Company officials said in a statement they were “shocked” by the action against the permit, saying it was “the most carefully scrutinized and fully considered mine permit in West Virginias history,” taking almost 10 years.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, both Democrats, criticized the EPA. Rockefeller called it “wrong and unfair” to change the rules for a permit that already was approved.

“When businesses make good faith efforts and fully comply with all applicable laws and regulations, they must have the confidence that the commitments made by the government will be honored,” Rockefeller said.

“To say that I am mad would be an understatement,” Manchin said.

“The Spruce Number 1 Mine permit was one of the most reviewed and carefully examined permits in history … and now the EPA is telling the employees and the business that made the investment that No, you cannot work. This is a prime example of how the federal government is not working for the people,” Manchin said.

Arch Coal received the corps permit in January 2007 for a 2,278-acre mine, after scaling back the project from what was initially approved in late 1990s.

The EPA letter was released a day after EPA Director Lisa Jackson told West Virginia Democrat Nick Rahall during a U.S. House committee hearing that EPA does not have a hidden agenda against the coal industry. She also said EPA has a responsibility to address mining issues that affect water quality.

Officials with the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection also met Thursday in Charleston to discuss strategies on dealing with EPA concerns about mining operations through state-issued water pollution discharge permits.

The Sierra Club applauded the EPAs move and said it “underscores the need for the Obama administration to develop new regulations to end mountaintop removal mining once and for all.”

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Associated Press Writer Dena Potter in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

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The announcement comes ahead of Tuesdays congressional hearing on a bill to set aside more than 1 million acres of federal lands north and south of the canyon. The bills sponsor, Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and environmental groups had been looking to Salazar for temporary protections at the Grand Canyon while the legislation is pending.

The Interior Department under President George W. Bush was unresponsive to efforts to ban new uranium mining claims. The House Natural Resources Committee invoked a little-used rule to stop any new claims for up to three years, but Interior officials refused to recognize the action and continued to authorize additional mining claims.

A coalition of environmental groups sued, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management later rescinded Congress right to withdraw lands from mining and other activities in emergencies.

Since then, environmentalists and Grijalva have been hanging their hopes on Salazar for temporary protections.

Any companion bill to Grijalvas in the Senate is unlikely to come from Arizonas two U.S. senators. Republicans John McCain and Jon Kyl told Grijalva in a letter last month that adequate protections already exist.

Conservationists contend mining leaves the Grand Canyon vulnerable to environmental damage and that no new operations should be proposed when the old mining sites havent been cleaned up.

There are as many as 10,000 existing mining claims on BLM and U.S. Forest Service lands near the Grand Canyon for all types of hard-rock exploration. Some 1,100 uranium mining claims are within five miles of the Grand Canyon National Park.

The protections offered by Salazar wont include uranium mining claims already filed near the Grand Canyon, the official said. Its not possible to prevent existing claims under the General Mining Act of 1872 unless Congress was to appropriate money for the department to buy up the claims, he said.

Former Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Rob Arnberger said he would welcome any protection that Salazar offers, but permanent withdrawal is the goal.

“Are we prepared to allow the landscape to be torn up adjacent to the park, to threaten the hydrological and the natural resources of that park?” Arnberger said. “My answer to that is no. Dont open it up to exploration.”

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