China miners rescued but little hope for subway workers

BEIJING (Reuters) - Rescuers in central China have saved 32 out of 34 miners who had been trapped by an underground flood, but there is now little hope of finding 14 people missing in a subway tunnel collapse, state media said on Tuesday.

One man died and another is still missing, the official Xinhua news agency said, after the flood hit the colliery in Henan province.

"The rescued miners, all in poor health condition, were immediately rushed to a local hospital," the report said.

China's mining industry is the world's most dangerous.

A total of 3,786 coal miners died in gas blasts, floodings and other accidents last year as companies, often flouting safety regulations, rushed to feed demand from a booming economy.

This year, coal mine accidents claimed 2,690 lives in the first ten months, a drop of 13.5 percent as thanks to the closure of thousands of small, unsafe mines across the country, Zhao Tiechui, vice minister of the State Administration of Work Safety, told Reuters Tuesday.

The Henan mine had been operating illegally and the owner has been detained, Xinhua added.

In the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, where seven people died after a half-built subway tunnel collapsed Saturday, rescuers hold out little hope of finding alive 14 people still missing, state television reported.

Zhao, who had just returned from Hangzhou, said investigations on the cause of the accident are still ongoing, but findings would likely lead to stricter oversight in the several provincial cities currently building or expanding their subway systems.

Separately, the government may start stopping or restricting bank loans to companies with poor work safety records, the Beijing News cited a government official as saying.

Companies which suffer accidents in which more than 10 people die at a time will also be put on a black list, which will be publicized, the report said. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Lucy Hornby; Editing by Valerie Lee)