A massive explosion at the Liushenyu coal mine in northern China’s Shanxi Province, the core of the country’s massive coal mining sector, has left at least 82 people dead and more than 120 injured, marking the deadliest mining disaster China has seen since 2009. What makes this tragedy particularly jarring for the Chinese public is that it harks back to the deadly epidemic of mining disasters that plagued China’s coal sector in the 2000s — a dark chapter that many believed had been permanently closed through years of regulatory reform.