The 10 miners trapped in Beijing's coal mine collapse on Sunday died in hospital, sources with the rescue headquarters said on Thursday.

The trapped miners were found on Thursday and rushed to a local hospital, noted the source.

Eight of the victims had been confirmed migrant workers from southwestern China's Sichuan Province, according to the headquarters.

The accident occurred Sunday morning in the Da'anshan Coal Minein Fangshan District, 90 km from downtown Beijing, when 16 miners were working underground.

The local government had demanded to set up a special team to investigate into the cause of the accident.

Five people were killed and another eight were still missing in a coal mine fire in northeastern China's Jilin Province on Thursday morning, local police said.

The fire occurred at 2:40 am in the Wanbao Coal Mine when 34 miners were working underground. Twenty-one escaped and another five miners were found dead later.

Leaders from the provincial government and administration of coal-mine safety rushed to the scene and set up a leading team to direct the rescue work.

Preliminary investigation showed the breach of a high-tension line in the coal mine's main tunnel caused the fire, said the police.

By press time, rescue work for the eight missing was still underway.

Rescue work ends 40 days after mine flooding kills 15 in Inner Mongolia

With relatives' nod, rescue teams gave up on Thursday the search for two miners trapped underground in Wuhai City, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, bringing the death toll from the mine flooding on April 30 to a final 15.

The decision to withdraw rescue teams from and finish the clean-up efforts in the Xinyuan coal mine was made due to the severe collapse inside, the local government said, adding that the act had won assent from the two miners' relatives and the approval from higher authorities.

"We have to be very careful not to cause new casualties among the rescuers," said a spokesman for the rescue headquarters. "Increasing collapses due to soaked earth had posed great threats to rescue workers' lives."

"Thus the rescue headquarters calls off all the relief efforts," he added.

More than 400 rescuers and even two water supply engineering regiments from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) were organized to carry out the rescue work after the tragedy occurred on the morning of April 30. Thirty-two miners working underground were trapped, and only seventeen miners were rescued.

Though rescue teams recovered 13 bodies from the dark and muddy lanes, they failed to find the remaining two trapped miners after 20 days of searching inside.

Wei Lian, the coal mine's former president, and former director Liu Quanyou were arrested on Wednesday by local police for their direct responsibility for the accident.

The two suspects were accused by local procurators of illegally mining in spite of hidden troubles that eventually led to the tragedy. They are all facing a charge of serious negligence of production safety, according to law.

Rescue work and the handling of the aftermath have been finished and the mine was thoroughly sealed by the local government.

Previous reports said the miners might have dug into an abandoned shaft filled with water or an underground spring.

The coal mine, with a reported reserve of one million tons and 30,000 tons of annual production capacity, hired some 60 miners and was ordered to stop production due to bad ventilation on April 28 by the local coal mine safety supervision administration. But its owner covertly resumed operation.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2004)