Fresh mine flood adds to China's missing miners

BEIJING, Aug 24 (Reuters) Eight Chinese miners are missing after another coal shaft was flooded, this time in southwest China, local media reported today, a week after a mine flood in eastern China trapped and likely killed 181 miners.

Emergency crews continued to try to reach the 181 miners trapped in the eastern province of Shandong, but an official has said there is ''no hope'' of survivors in one of the nation's worst mine disasters.

They were trapped a week ago when a river dyke burst during torrential rain, sending water surging into mine shafts. Most of the miners are trapped in one main shaft. Nine others were in a smaller one nearby.

Now the West China Metropolitan Daily has reported that eight more miners are missing in the southwest province of Sichuan after water rushed into a shaft yesterday.

By late yesterday, over 200 rescuers had gathered to try to dig out the men, the paper said.

''The fate of the eight remains unclear,'' the report said.

''The precise causes of the accident are being investigated.'' Since July, there had been 15 cases of heavy rain causing mine floods, a safety official said this week.

Smaller mine accidents, such as the one in Sichuan, are so common in China that they only get brief mention in local news reports.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in China's coal mines in the first seven months of this year alone, despite repeated government campaigns to clean up an industry that has long been the world's deadliest.

China's death rate from mining accidents was 70 times that of the United States in 2005 and seven times worse than Russia and India, Xinhua news agency reported.

REUTERS SKB DS1136