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XIANGNING, China: Problems mounted for rescuers searching for survivors in a flooded China mine Wednesday, with officials warning of a toxic gas build-up, as the death toll rose to seven.
Cramped conditions and the risk of a gas explosion in the Wangjialing mine in north China's Shanxi province have complicated efforts to find 31 workers still believed trapped in the pit, with some emergency personnel falling ill.
So far, 115 workers have been pulled to safety from the mine, which flooded on March 28 during construction work. Officials have described the rescue as a "miracle" for an industry plagued by deadly accidents and a poor safety record.
Seven bodies have been recovered, the rescue headquarters announced early Wednesday, but authorities say there is still hope for those trapped, even though they are believed to be in the deepest part of the state-owned mine.
"We have persisted for 10 days and we won't give up," rescuer Ji Weiqun told the China News Service.
A total of 261 workers were in the mine at the time of the accident, but 108 managed to escape.
The rescue on Monday of more than 100 others - who survived on tree bark, sawdust, paper and even coal - buoyed hopes of finding more.
"We will do everything to rescue" the workers still trapped, Shanxi governor Wang Jun was quoted as saying by the China News Service.
But Liu Dezheng, vice-director of the provincial work safety administration and spokesman for the rescue efforts, said workers were having trouble operating the drainage pumps in the tight mine shaft.
Liu also said the level of toxic gas had reached "dangerous" levels in some parts of the mine where water had been pumped out, according to Xinhua news agency.
At area hospitals where survivors were being treated, doctors said most of the patients were stable, but 26 were experiencing more serious symptoms such as chest congestion and headaches, the Global Times reported Wednesday.
Some were suffering from psychological trauma after their ordeal, it said.
"Starting on the third or fourth day when we heard of the rescue operation, I began feeling relieved and dared to have a nap," survivor Cheng Quanzhong told state television CCTV.
AFP reporters have not been allowed into hospitals in the nearby city of Hejin to question the survivors about the accident. Relatives were also being kept away, with doctors saying the survivors need rest.
But family members - some of whom do not know if their loved ones are dead or alive - are growing increasingly frustrated.
"They wouldn't tell us anything, they wouldn't let us in," 46-year-old Xiang Qinghe, whose nephew was in the mine, told AFP.
"I just want to see if he's there - if we see him, we can relax."
The accident occurred when workers apparently dug into an older adjacent mine that had been shut down and filled with water, a practice used to stabilise the geology in abandoned collieries, press reports have said.
The national work safety watchdog blamed the accident on owner Huajin Coking Coal Company, which failed to heed repeated warnings that water was building up days before the disaster.
Safety standards are widely flouted in China's mines in the quest for quick profits and to meet surging coal demand - source of about 70 per cent of the country's energy.
The state-run English-language Global Times on Wednesday hit out at lax safety standards in the coal mining industry in a commentary on the accident.
"The government put enormous efforts into the rescue attempt.... But if the same strong efforts were applied to safety measures, many similar accidents might well have been avoided in the first place," it said.
More than 2,600 miners were killed last year, according to government figures.
Amid anger over the mounting deaths, China in recent years touted a drive to shut unsafe mines, saying it had closed thousands - many in Shanxi, the country's coal-producing heartland. But accidents have continued unabated.
- AFP/yb
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