Desperate efforts to save 181 Chinese coal miners from two shafts flooded with water and mud faced near impossible odds on Wednesday, as a safety official said mine owners had failed to anticipate the threat of disaster.
The miners have been trapped since Friday, when a river dyke burst in torrential rain sending water surging into the shafts -- a main one where 172 miners were missing and another nearby where there were nine.
The drama over the missing miners in the eastern province of Shandong has become a test of shaken public faith in government promises to improve safety at mines -- long the world's deadliest as producers strain to feed voracious energy demand.
Officials vowed to press ahead with attempts to pump the shafts dry, but even the official Xinhua news agency has said there was little hope of the men emerging alive.
Rescuers face more than 12 million cubic metres of water mixed with 300,000 cubic metres of mud and coal, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
By Wednesday afternoon, pumps were approaching drainage capacity of 2,000 cubic metres of water per hour. But rescuers have told Xinhua that even at 5,000 cubic metres per hour, it would take 100 days to drain away all the water.
The dyke that unleashed the torrent continued to leak on Wednesday after hundreds of troops and police blocked the main breach over the weekend with rocks, sandbags, trees and even trucks, the China News Service reported.
"This has become a major peril to rescue efforts," the report said.
