A senior work official said Wednesday the fate of the 57 miners trapped in a flooded mine in north China's Shanxi Province is still not known. 

It's nearly a week since floodwater trapped the coal miners. "It's difficult to predict whether they are alive or dead," said Peng Yujing, the official in charge of policy and regulation for the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) at the mine.

Two local officials Chang Rui, party secretary of Zhangjiachang Town Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Liu Yongxin, the township leader, were suspended from their posts on Tuesday night.

More than 100 miners were working in the Xinjing Coal Mine in Zuoyun County on May 18 when sudden floods entered the tunnels. Fifty-seven miners were trapped while 47 others made their way to safety. .

There are now eight pumps at the site which in ideal conditions are capable of draining 1,065 cubic meters of water every hour, said Peng. By 6 AM this morning about 23,355 cubic meters had been pumped out which lowered the water level slightly.  .

However, the drainage work has not been progressing smoothly due to "very complicated" geological formations in the mine and the high acid content of the flood water which can corrode the pipelines, said Peng.

Nine people, including mine owner Li Fuyuan, contractor Wang Sheng and the mine's legal representative Lan Renhe have been arrested by police for attempting to cover up the accident. However, two managerial staff including one who was responsible for work safety has gone into hiding, Bai Yulong, spokesman of the rescue headquarters, said on Wednesday.

Managers first reported that just five people had died in the incident and only admitted to the true extent of the situation after investigators flew to the scene.

The local government has ordered the suspension of coal production at all the local mines for safety inspections and also frozen 11 accounts in seven banks connected to the mine. The accounts held around 8 million yuan (nearly US$1 million), said Peng.

He added that more than 180 family members of 54 of the missing miners had traveled from 10 provinces to be at the scene of the disaster.

Miners who escaped told Xinhua that the mine showed signs of flooding six days before the accident. However, management ordered them to keep working. 

"On May 18, a team leader had an argument with the management as he insisted mining should stop because it was too dangerous," said a miner surnamed Yang. "He was slapped in the face by a manager." The angry team leader did not go to work underground and hadn't been involved in the accident, he added.

Initial investigations show the production output of the mine was far greater than the authorized level.

Li Yizhong, head of SAWS, earlier revealed that the colliery was only licensed to mine 90,000 tons of coal a year but production between March 2 and May 18 alone had reached 130,000 tons.

He has urged investigators to broaden their probe into possible official corruption which may have allowed the mine to overproduce. He also demanded an investigation into local officials who may have helped in initial attempts to cover up the extent of the disaster.

Meanwhile in neighboring Henan Province eight people were killed and one injured in a gas explosion at an illegal coal mine on Monday night according to the provincial work safety bureau.

The blast occurred in the village of Huaipashu in Mianchi County just hours after the mine had been secretly re-opened after being shut in a government safety crackdown.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, May 25, 2006)