Hope fades for trapped miners in central China

Rescuers transport pipes on Wednesday for pumping out water from a flooded coal mine in Xiangtan county of Hunan province. [Photo/China News Service]

People gather near a flooded coal mine where seven miners were trapped underground in Xiangtan county of Hunan province, Dec 1, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]

Experts and rescuers said Wednesday there was little hope of finding seven miners trapped underground alive after a coal mine was flooded nearly one day earlier in Hunan Province.

The flood happened at 11:38 p.m. Tuesday in a pit at the Yide Coal Mine in Xiangtan County, trapping seven miners at a depth of 89 meters, said Zhao Jun, one of the experts involved in the rescue operation.

The miners were believed to be stranded in a tiny area and it is possible they have drowned, said Zhao, who is also the chief engineer of Hunan's Coal Industry Bureau.

In addition, the oxygen density was tested to be 8 percent at a depth of 83 meters in the flooded pit, indicating less oxygen at the level where the miners were trapped, which increases the possibility of suffocation, rescuers said.

However, rescuers are still trying to install more pumps to drain the water. A spokesman with the emergency rescue headquarters said Yide, a small mine that had doubled its annual output to 60,000 tonnes after recently merging with a neighboring mine, had been warned due to safety concerns, both orally and in writing, over the past four weeks.

Senior executives and major shareholders of the mine are now in police custody.