XINMI, China (AFP) - An underground gas explosion which ripped through a mine in central China killed at least 60 workers and left 88 missing in one of the country's worst mining disasters in recent memory, officials said.
The shafts of the Daping coal mine near Xinmi in Henan province were packed with around 450 workers when disaster struck Wednesday just as two shifts were changing over, mine officials said.
More than 100 rescuers battling toxic gases were searching for survivors as anxious relatives waited for news about their loved ones.
"My elder brother is down in the mine, he went to work yesterday afternoon," said Wu Quanyou, a man in his 20s squatting in an area near the mine entrance reserved for family members.
"We've had accidents before in this area but it was always just eight or nine dead," he said, expressionless.
The accident is yet another blow to China's beleaguered coal mining industry. China is the biggest consumer and producer of coal but appalling safety standards contribute to thousands of mining deaths each year.
The authorities held out little hope of finding survivors.
"From our experience, with 148 people missing due to a gas explosion in a coal mine, the chances of survival are slim," Sun Huashan, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, told a briefing in Beijing.
The Henan Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau said it did everything in its power to rescue people but it too was pessimistic.
"The situation is very tough in the mine, the gas is very dense, and in such conditions it's hard to survive," said an official at the bureau, surnamed Cao.
An employee at the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group, which runs the mine, said the blast happened at one of the pit's busiest times when 446 miners were listed as being underground.
"We've got two shifts, one that works from two in the afternoon until midnight, and one that begins at ten in the evening and goes home at eight the morning after," she said.
The Work Safety Administration said on its website that 298 people had escaped from the mine, 18 of them with injuries.
"Several are in a serious condition," said a nurse at a hospital run by the company. "They've got burns, broken bones and cuts."
The Daping coal mine, established in 1986, is one of Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group's largest with an annual output of one million tonnes, a website run by the Zhengzhou city government said.
Its miners get about 1,000 yuan (120 dollars) a month for their unhealthy and hazardous work deep underground.
They are well aware of the hazards but often they have no choice.
"You do what you have to do," said a man in his 50s, waiting near the mine for news about his younger brother.
Official figures indicate over 7,000 workers die each year in China's coal mines, but Hong Kong-based human rights group China Labor Bulletin puts the annual number of deaths in the industry at around 20,000.
Many small and private mines operate outside official control, with local officials sometimes being bribed to turn a blind eye to lax safety procedures.
One of the most serious known accidents in recent years happened in September 2000 at a coal mine in southern Guizhou province, where a gas explosion claimed the lives of 162 people.
China's economy is growing at breakneck pace and has created a voracious appetite for more energy.
In the first nine months of this year alone, 4,153 people died in mine accidents in China, according to official figures.