BEIJING (Reuters) - Seven Chinese coal miners have been confirmed dead in a flooded pit as hopes dimmed of finding 29 trapped colleagues alive, state media said on Wednesday.
The disaster is the most recent in a grim series ofaccidents to blight China's coal mining industry, the deadliestin the world, as mine owners push production beyond safetylimits in the face of huge demand and soaring profits.
The flooding occurred at a mine in Tiandong county inGuangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the southwest on Mondaywhen 57 miners were working underground. Twenty-one escaped orwere rescued.
Rescuers had recovered seven bodies by Tuesday night, buthad yet to determine the location of the 29, the officialXinhua news agency said.
"(We) cannot say there is no chance of them being foundalive, but the task ahead is extremely arduous and difficult,"Xinhua quoted Huang Yi, spokesman for the State Work SafetyAdministration, as saying.
Xinhua said on Tuesday that rescuers had establishedcontact with 12 of the 36 trapped miners and had tried to sendthem water and porridge.
Its Wednesday report did not say if the seven who died wereamong the 12.
Huang, the work safety spokesman, said rescuers had todrain 4,000 cubic metres of water near a "working face" 446metres (1,460 feet) underground.
A total of 3,786 Chinese coal miners died in gas blasts,flooding and other accidents in 2007, down 20 percent from2006.
Officials have said that China, undergoing rapidindustrialisation, may need another decade before there is adrastic fall in mine and other industrial deaths.
(Reporting by Guo Shipeng; Editing by Nick Macfie)
