Six miners died in a coal mine gas surge in central China's Hunan Province at the weekend.

Twelve miners still missing in the accident are feared to have suffocated to death.

A local official said yesterday that the missing workers were unlikely to have survived despite the ongoing rescue efforts which have been going on round the clock.

The methane gas surge happened at 5 pm on Saturday in Dayuan Coal Mine of the province's Longhui County when 24 miners were working underground. Six miners were saved.

"The amount of gas is too much and those missing miners were probably suffocated to death," said the head of the county's coal industry bureau, surnamed Huang.

"There is no hope of survival." He said the mine was full of methane gas and rescue efforts had been difficult.

The mine has about 150 miners and an annual mining capacity of 20,000 tons.

Huang said his county has nine such small coal mines, and claimed they had all met the central government's standards for work safety.

However, the highest safety watchdog has not been satisfied with the province's efforts in closing up small-scale mines, which are blamed for frequent disasters because of poor safety equipment.

Recently, safety inspection teams headed by Li Yizhong, minister of the State Administration of Work Safety, found that a large number of small mines in the province did not meet the national work safety standards.

Many local officials are believed to have been working to help protect the illegal pits from being closed.

"Frequent examinations should be made on collieries that have been asked to shut down and those that were required to enhance safety measures," said Li.

Recently, the provincial government has agreed to close more than 400 coal mines in Hunan. The central government has decided to close 12,900 small coalmines across the country within the next three years.

(China Daily February 27, 2006)