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XINTAI, China - Chinese rescue workers were frantically pumping water from flooded mine shafts on Monday, holding out slim hope that more than 180 miners trapped for three days were still alive.
The disaster is just the latest to strike China's coal mining industry, the world's deadliest, with more than 2000 miners killed in accidents over the first seven months of the year.
The miners have been trapped since Friday afternoon when a burst river dyke sent water rushing into the mine shafts in the eastern coastal province of Shandong.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao signalled high-level attention to the accident with a weekend notice on the government's website demanding that rescuers "promptly mobilise equipment and personnel and adopt all necessary measures to rescue the trapped miners".
By late on Sunday, the water level had dropped from nearly 90 metres to 83 metres, state media reported, and drilling equipment from a nearby oil field had been installed to help with the rescue effort.
Water pumps from neighbouring provinces had also been sent to the site and by Sunday a team of army troops, armed police and miners managed to block the levee breach on the swollen Wenhe River, swollen from torrential rains.
China relies on coal to fuel its economic boom, and with domestic coal prices at record levels, some operators boost production beyond safe limits despite government efforts to enforce safety standards.
Because of their frequency, mine accidents in China do not garner the same media coverage as they do in the United States, where efforts to rescue six trapped miners in Utah have been front-page news for nearly two weeks.
In a separate accident to hit Shandong, four people were killed and 51 injured in a spill at an aluminium foundry, Xinhua news agency reported.
The accident happened in a foundry affiliated to the Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group Co, Ltd, in the Shandong county of Zouping. Officials were investigating.
- REUTERS
