More than 200 miners are trapped and feared dead in a flooded tin mine in China's southern region of Guangxi, state media said yesterday, but mine officials said the reports were highly exaggerated.
The official Wenhui Daily said more than 70 bodies had been found and alleged that the mine owners had tried to stop news of the disaster spreading, partly by paying compensation to relatives to buy their silence.
An official with Longquan Mining Company confirmed there was an accident at the mine on July 16, but he dismissed reports that more than 200 miners were trapped and 70 bodies found.
"There was an accident in which miners dug into an abandoned mine filled with water and a number of people died," the official said.
"We are not sure of the death toll yet but it was impossible that so many people should have been killed," he said.
Miners work in three shifts, 24 hours a day in the 700m deep tin mine and there were usually between 200 and 300 miners on each shift, he said.
"But it was a huge mine with many pits, which cannot be all flooded," the official said.
Another official at the mine owner's office said there had been a "minor" accident at the mine but declined to give details.
Accidents at China's poorly regulated mines kill thousands of workers every year.
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