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TAI'AN,China-Rescuers battled Saturday to reach more than 180 miners trapped underground by flash flooding in eastern China, but officials warned the men had little chance of survival. Torrential rains triggered flooding which breached a river levee and sent water cascading into the mine in Shandong province via an old shaft, the official Xinhua news agency reported.Wang Ziqi,director of the Shandong coal mine safety administration board,said the trapped men had only slim chances of survival and relatives said they were expecting the worst. "There are very slim chances for them to survive because it has been flooded and it is very difficult to pump out the water," a relative of a miner at the colliery, surnamed Liu, told AFP in Beijing.Liu, whose husband was involved in the rescue effort at the Zhangzhuang mine in the city of Xintai, added: "The relatives of people trapped have been waiting all night at the front door of the site".Officials said 756 miners had been underground when the water swept in.Of those,584 were rescued, leaving 172 trapped.They said another nine people were trapped in a nearby mine after similar flooding while 86 were able to escape.The flooding on Friday afternoon followed hours of downpours, and rescue work was hampered by further rains which fell during the evening and Saturday.By Saturday morning, according to rescue headquarters cited by Xinhua, all working places underground had been inundated.Senior officials from China's State Administration of Work Safety rushed to oversee rescue efforts at the mine in Xintai, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Beijing.Xinhua said 2,000 troops, armed police and miners had closed most of the breach in the Wen river levee, but flood waters in the area had risen to two metres (6.5 feet).More than 50 workers were installing pumps, as all underground pumps were no longer working, Xinhua said.One miner who usually works above the ground told AFP he was heading to the scene to help."I feel very sad... Such a disaster is very rare. By chance I was at home but now I am going to help with my workers," said the miner, who asked not to be named. The authorities ordered all mines in the area to stop work, while the work safety watchdog issued an emergency notice urging all mines to take preventive measures against possible flooding caused by the heavy rains.In Tai'an, about 40 kilometres northwest of Xintai, all major roads to the scene were sealed off for "an official matter," one toll booth operator told AFP.
Roadblocks were set up on several smaller roads in the area, an AFP reporter witnessed.
China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and fatal accidents happen almost every day.More than 4,700 workers died last year, according to official figures, but independent labour groups put the real toll at up to 20,000 annually, saying many accidents are covered up.
On Friday, 14 miners in the eastern province of Jiangxi were rescued after being trapped in a flooded pit for more than a day, Xinhua reported earlier.It was the second lucky escape for Chinese miners this month. On August 1, 69 men were trapped in a flooded mine in central Henan province for more than three days before being pulled out alive.China has been probing thousands of cases of unlicensed mining and closing down the notoriously dangerous smaller mines in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths.The problem is that even as small mines are being closed down, new ones are being opened at a rapid pace.Small mines, defined as those with annual production below 300,000 tonnes, make up 82.9 percent of all mines under construction, officials have said.China had set itself a target of slashing the number of smaller coal mines from the existing 24,000 to 10,000 by 2010.But officials have acknowledged this goal is very unlikely to be met as new small mines are established, driven by strong demand and large profit margins, according to previous reports.Coal currently accounts for some 70 percent of the nation's primary energy consumption, more than 40 percentage points higher than the world average.China is now keenly exploring clean and renewable energy resources such as wind power, bio-fuels and gas to reduce reliance on coal, although experts say wholesale conversion is unlikely for financial reasons and because of lack of technology.
As in the days of Noah...
