Abstract: Roof disaster is an important hidden danger affecting the safety of coalmines. This paper summarized the types, locations, causes and developing trend of roof accidents in the past decade, and studied the characteristics of coalmine roof accidents in China. On the basis of previous analysis, the paper introduced the controlling techniques for dealing with coalmine roof disasters, including the geo-mechanical test and evaluation of surrounding rock in mining area and surrounding rock control technology of roadway and working face; in the aspects of roadway surrounding rock control, there are coal and rock geological mechanics testing technology and equipment, bolt support technology, grouting reinforcement technology, deep high-stress and strong mining roadway pressure relief technology, and complex section support technology; working face surrounding rock control technology includes hydraulic support, hard and difficult-to-span roof weakening technology, broken roof reinforcement and comprehensive control technology. Although the number of roof accidents and the number of deaths in China’s coal mines have decreased significantly in the past 10 years, roof accidents are still the most frequent accidents in China’s coal mines. Since 2017, roof accidents have rebounded, and there is still a long way to go in the prevention and control of roof disasters.