Rescuers were continuing efforts on Sunday to reach 16 miners trapped in a flooded coal mine in northeast China while local authorities ordered the closure of more than 70 small mines, officials said.
The Fengguang Coal Mine near Shulan city in Jilin province flooded on Friday, trapping 16 of the 152 miners in the shaft at the time. The others managed to escape.
"We haven't found the 16 miners yet," said Zhu Lufeng, mining section head at the work safety administration for Jilin province.
The official Xinhua news agency said the source of the flood was an underground pond that had formed in an abandoned coal mine nearby, without giving the specific cause of the accident.
Zhu said rescuers had not yet found the holes through which the water was pouring into the mine, making pumping impossible.
It was the fourth mining disaster since the beginning of August, the worst of which cost the lives of 123 miners in the southern province of Guangdong.
Jilin provincial authorities ordered 70 more than mines around Shulan to cease operations immediately for inspection, Xinhua said.
All mines which did not meet safety requirements would not reopen, it said.
Orders to close mines are often ignored and many function illegally but with the blessing of the local authorities which rely on coal as a source of employment and income in poor regions.
China's mines are considered the most deadly in the world with safety often sacrificed to supply the fuel that is driving the country's rapid industrialization and economic growth.
China recorded about 2,700 mining fatalities in the first half of the year from explosions, shaft collapses, fires and other accidents.
Independent estimates say the real figure could be far higher as mines often falsify death counts to escape closures and fines.
