Flooding traps 180 coal miners in eastern China

More than 180 coal miners were trapped underground and feared dead in eastern China yesterday after a rain-swollen river burst a levee and flooded two separate shafts, the latest blow to the world's deadliest mining industry.

The official Xinhua news agency said 584 miners escaped after Friday's incident at the state-run Huayuan Mining Corportion mine in Shandong province, but attempts to reach another 172 were hampered by continued flooding as soldiers raced to repair the river levee.

Nine other miners were trapped in the Minggong mine nearby, after 86 others there escaped, Xinhua said.

The trapped miners had only a "slim chance" of survival, Wang Ziqi, director of the Shandong coal mine safety administration, told Xinhua.

State television later reported that President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao urged local officials to spare no effort to reach the trapped miners as soon as possible.

The scene of weary emergency workers and anxious relatives echoed a mine accident in the United States, which has a much cleaner safety record but where three people have died trying to save six miners trapped in a Utah coal mine. More than 200 millimetres of rain had fallen in Xintai, about 570 km southeast of Beijing, since Thursday, causing a 50-metre breach of a levee of the Wen river.

Water poured into the 860-metre deep pit at the Huayuan mine, quickly overwhelming the mine's pumps. It was not known at what level most of the miners were trapped, but 14 were 30 metres underground, according to Xinhua.