Hopes dim for more than 180 trapped Chinese miners

XINTAI, China, Aug 19 (Reuters) More than 180 Chinese coal miners trapped in flooded shafts have slim hopes of survival, but officials said they would press on with frantic rescue efforts after one of the nation's worst mine disasters.

In the eastern province Shandong, 172 miners were pinned down after the rain-swollen Wen River overcame flood defences and surged down the shaft on Friday. Nine others were trapped in a shaft nearby.

By early today, rescuers had sealed a more than 50-metre (160-foot) gash in the levee after hundreds of troops piled sacks of cement, trees, rocks and even trucks into the gap.

Officials said the breach in the levee had to be closed before the water in the mine shafts could be pumped out and the rescue operations begun.

''The levee has been restored, this is the first step which is good,'' Wang Dequan, spokesman for Tai'an city government, which oversees Xintai, told Reuters.

''Now we are now preparing to pump water out of the mine before sending rescue workers into the mines,'' he said.

However, Wang said officials were still waiting for larger pumps from neighbouring provinces to speed those efforts.

''There is a lot of water to pump out,'' Wang said.

Officials acknowledged hopes were dim for most, if not all, of the 172 men trapped down the Huayuan Mining Corp. shaft, which goes as deep as 860 metres (2,800 feet). Deputy province governor Wang Junmin said 150 of them were far below the surface.

''I'd guess that the miners down the shaft have no hope of survival,'' said the chief rescue officer, Zhu Wenyu, according to state media.

Today, there was no fresh news of the fate of the nine miners in the other shaft.

DEADLY OCCUPATION Officials vowed to do all they could after the latest demonstration that the country's mines remain perilous even after a concerted safety crackdown.

''Spare no efforts in the rescue work,'' said the province Communist Party chief, Li Jianguo, according to state radio.

''Every one that can be saved counts.'' China relies on coal for most of its energy needs, pushing coal prices to record levels in the mainland, the world's top producer and consumer of the fuel.

That demand for coal to feed rapid economic growth in the world's fourth-largest economy has led some mine operators to push production beyond safe limits, despite Beijing's efforts to crack down on corruption and lax enforcement of standards.

The miners make about 198 dollars a month and many were farmers working the fields around Tai'an attracted by the relatively higher wages offered by the mines. It is not unusual for fathers and sons to work together in the coal mines.

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.

Mining is risky worldwide, but China's coal industry is deadlier than any other country's, with about 2,163 coal miners killed in 1,320 accidents in the first seven months of the year.

But even in a country that sees a numbing daily trail of mine deaths, the scale of this latest disaster stood out.

China's worst mine disaster was in 2005, when a gas explosion killed 214 miners in the country's northeast. Smaller accidents are so regular that they usually gain little more than brief mention in state-run media.

In past days, more than 200 mm of rain have fallen in Xintai, about 570 km southeast of Beijing.

Last year, 4,746 people were killed in thousands of blasts, floods and other mining accidents. While this year's record had been improving, the level is far worse than in other major coal-producing nations.

REUTERS JT BST1028