Top leaders have showed enormous concern over the coal mine flood which trapped 102 miners at the Daxing Coal Mine in southern China's Guangdong Province on Sunday afternoon, according to official sources.
Shortly after the accident occurred, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao gave important instructions to urge the local government and departments concerned to "take substantial steps and spare no efforts" to save the trapped miners.
Zhang Dejiang, secretary of Guangdong provincial committee of the Communist Party of China and Hua Jianmin State Councilor and Secretary-General of the State Council, also ordered rescuers to try every means to minimize the number of casualties.
The accident occurred at 1:30 PM Sunday in a private coal mine named of Daxing, which is located at the Wanghuai Town of Meizhou City.
The flood happened in the tunnel which is about 480 meters underground and rescuers were drawing water out of the mine with water pumps, said an official with the city government at the site, who declined to give his name.
Li Yizhong, director of the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration, and Zhao Tiechui, director of the State Coal Mine Safety Supervision Administration, are on their way to the coal mine to supervise the rescue work.
(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2005)
