6 Students in China Die on Field Trip to Mining Facility

The company operating the facility has a history of safety violations.

Heavy smoke is discharged from chimneys of a steel mills in Baotou, Inner Mongolia in northern China, on July 11, 2005. Cancan Chu/Getty Images

The deaths of six Chinese university students during a visit to an ore processing facility in Inner Mongolia, northern China, have fuelled a growing wave of frustration and anger over the authorities’ response to such incidents.

The students from Northeastern University fell into an industrial flotation cell on July 23, after the grid plate collapsed under them, the factory’s owner, Zhongjin Gold Corp, a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Gold Group, said in a stock filing on July 24. A teacher was also injured in the incident.