Overview

• On July 23 at around 10:20 a.m., six mineral processing engineering students from Northeastern University fell through a collapsed grid plate into a flotation tank at the Wunugetushan Copper-Molybdenum Mine in Inner Mongolia.
• Zhongjin Gold, a subsidiary of China National Gold Group, activated its emergency plan, halted production and confirmed the students drowned, and one accompanying teacher sustained injuries.
• The company reported the incident to local government departments and deleted earlier blog posts that had touted recent grid plate replacements and hazard eradication.
• Local authorities and company safety teams have opened probes into maintenance protocols in line with heightened regulatory scrutiny of mining accidents.
• The tragedy has provoked a viral Weibo outcry under the hashtag #ChinaGoldApology, which garnered roughly 52 million views, and Northeastern University has not publicly commented.