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102 trapped Chinese miners face watery death

Hopes faded yesterday for 102 Chinese coal miners trapped by floodwaters as state media reported an explosion at a second pit that killed 14 people.

The accident happened on Sunday afternoon at the Daxing Coal Mine in Xingning, some 265km northeast of the provincial capital of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province.

"There are 15 million to 20 million cubic meters of water under the mine and the water level is still rising 50cm an hour," the Xinhua news agency quoted a vice mayor of nearby Meizhou as saying.

"Chances of the trapped workers surviving are relatively small," he said.

Four miners escaped from the privately run mine, Xinhua said.

What triggered the flooding was unknown, Xinhua said. The China News Service said adjoining mines had been ordered to suspend production and evacuate workers.

"Objectively speaking, it's very very difficult to pump out all the water because more water is gushing in as some is pumped out," said an official in Wanghuai Township, near Xingning, who refused to give his name.

"The miners are located 480m underground, the water level is already higher than that. The survival chances are slim," he said.

Mines in the area were ordered to close after an accident last month, Xinhua said, without specifying whether the Daxing mine was operating illegally.

Shortly after the accident, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) urged local officials to "take substantial steps and spare no efforts" to save the trapped miners.

Flooding at a coal mine in Xingning killed 16 workers on July 14, Xinhua said.

Further west, 14 miners were killed yesterday and two were missing in a gas explosion at a mine in Liupanshui in Guizhou Province. Only 23 miners managed to escape, Xinhua said.

China relies on coal for over two-thirds of its energy needs but accidents in the mining industry -- the world's most dangerous -- claimed 2,700 lives in the first half of this year alone.

Independent estimates say the real figure could be far higher as mines often falsify death counts to escape closures and fines.

In the worst mining disaster in the country's recent history, at least 203 workers were killed after a gas explosion in Liaoning Province last February.

Beijing recently announced the closure of 5,000 unlicensed coal mines, often the worst violators of safety regulations.

But high prices and the booming economy's voracious appetite for power encourage some to reopen illegally and others to ignore regulations or push production beyond capacity.

China's coal consumption is expected to rise by around 6 percent this year, Xinhua quoted the China Coal Industry Association as saying.
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