Protest over rescue efforts at Chinese mine

XINTAI, China -- Distressed family members shouted and scuffled with guards after a third day without word on 172 miners trapped in a flooded mine in eastern China, where rescue crews began pumping water Sunday.

Paramilitary police and emergency crews plugged a breach in a dike that burst Friday after heavy rains, flooding the Huayuan Mining Co. mine, officials and state media said. As industrial pumps began siphoning water that stood 65 feet deep in the shaft, experts analyzed accident data to try to locate the missing miners, a provincial official said.

"There's some hope, and we will expend one hundred percent, a thousand percent of effort to carry out the search and rescue," Zhang Dekuan, spokesman for the government of Shandong province, where the mine is located, told reporters.

In contrast to the blanket coverage in the U.S. of rescue efforts for six miners in Utah, accounts in China's wholly state-owned media have been terse. Reports Sunday focused on the successful mending of the breach, but said little about the trapped miners -- a sign that the government remains nervous about public anger over perceived mistreatment.

Despite Zhang's media briefing in a local hotel, no officials or mining company executives emerged from Huayuan's sprawling, gated compound to talk to the miners' waiting, anxious relatives. No list of the missing had been issued, they said.

"They are treating these people like they are things to be sacrificed," said Li Chunmei, whose 42-year-old brother was believed to be trapped in the 600-yard shaft. "You would think an official could come and tell us what's going on, whether there are any signs of life, are they dead or alive."

Dozens of relatives -- sobbing mothers and children among them -- shouted "Why don't you come out!" at officials who stood with police and security guards behind the gate. At one point, the crowd surged, bending the aluminum gate and setting off a fracas of shoving. Later, a middle-aged woman broke through only to be wrestled away by two guards in camouflage.

Meanwhile, another nine miners were stranded in a second mine in the area that also flooded after the rain-swollen Wen river burst two dikes, bringing the total number of missing to 181.

If the Huayuan miners are found dead, the accident would be among the worst of its kind in 58 years of communist rule, second only to an explosion that killed 214 miners in the northeast in 2005.

China's mines are woefully dangerous, with an average of 13 miners dying every day. The toll has become a blot for the communist leadership, which has called for improved safety, especially since the country, with its torrid economy, depends on coal to meet two-thirds of its energy needs.

Zhang said that "social stability" remained a top priority. Immediately after his briefing, another official warned reporters to stay away from the families.

"Please do not bother them. It's not permitted to interview them," Gao Yuqing, deputy head of the Shandong Propaganda Department, said. "Let them peacefully wait for news of their loved ones."

Distrust over the Huayuan mine was building before the latest accident. The mine sits outside Xintai city and abuts the county seat of Xinwen. Under the old planned economy, Xinwen owned the mine, which provided secure jobs and cradle-to-gave benefits to 10,000 employees and their families but bankrupted the mine.

As Beijing embraced market forces, Xinwen sent the mine into a painful privatization. In 2003, the mine purged its payrolls of retirees, the sick and, unnervingly, experienced, higher-paid employees, thinning the ranks to 6,000 workers.

"Reducing personnel is OK. They had to do it to be competitive. But they let go the older most experienced workers who had difficulty finding work," said Li Nianzhong, a 43-year-old former mine accountant for 20 years who now repairs motorcycles for a living.

Under Huayuan's ownership, the mine has remained in difficult straits, its production falling and its coal reserves nearly exhausted, said Li and an official from the Xinwen county Mining Bureau who asked not to be identified. Huayuan officials declined comment.

Outside Huayuan's gates, the relatives and workers said that the poor finances raised concerns about whether management spent enough on safety, given that summer rains flood the mine almost every year.

"We have suspicions in our hearts. Those are our relatives inside" the mine, said Zhang Qingmei, who delivered a load of piping to the accident scene Sunday and whose brother-in-law was missing. "The officials say 'safety first, production second' but they have not followed those instructions."

Still, mining remains a good job in the Xintai area, they said, with miners bringing home about $106 a month, more than most factory jobs.

"Why, why won't you tell me what's happened," Zhou Qin, the sister of a trapped miner, wailed outside the mine's gates, as her nephew and son held her arms.

"My father has worked in the mine for more than 20 years. Now we don't know what to do," her nephew, Zhou Feng said.