Six miners die in mishap

Six miners died when they were trapped in a flooded bleaching clay mine in east China, the local government said.

Sixteen miners were working underground at Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang, when the flooding occurred on Wednesday but ten of them were rescued, leaving six others trapped who were confirmed dead, a government spokesman said.

Safety loopholes of the mines operating procedures were cited as the probable cause for the accident, official Xinhua news agency said.

Operations in all the pit mines in the city were ordered to be suspended pending safety inspections, it said.

In the worst coal mine accident so far this year, 34 miners had died in a colliery blast in coal rich Shaanxi province last week.

The mining industry in China is considered the most dangerous in the world, reflected in the high rate of accidents which caused nearly 3,800 deaths last year.

The accidents are often blamed on lack of safety measures but the government says that plugging loopholes had helped in significantly bringing down the number of mine mishaps.