Related: Work safety official orders efforts to rescue miners trapped in Shanxi
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              57 miners might be trapped in coal mine flooding in north China

Rescuers carry a drainpipe to the Xinjing Coal Mine in Zuoyun County of north China's Shanxi Province late May 20. (Xinhua Photo)

    ZUOYUN, Shanxi, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Two local officials were suspended from post on Tuesday following the coal mine flooding in Zuoyun County, north China's Shanxi Province, said the rescue headquarters Wednesday.

    The accident occurred at 8:30 p.m. last Thursday at Xinjing Coal Mine in Zhangjiachang Town. Latest check results show that probably 57 miners are still trapped underground.

    Chang Rui, party secretary of Zhangjiachang Town Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Liu Yongxin, the township head, were suspended from their posts on Tuesday night.

    Zuoyun County government has also ordered the suspension of coal production at all the local collieries for safety inspection following the fatal flooding.

    Local safety authorities had earlier tried to cover up the deadly accident by reporting that five miners were trapped.

    Nine managerial staffs including the owner of the miner Li Fuyuan have been detained by the police. However, two managerial staff including one who was responsible for work safety has gone into hiding, Bai Yulong, spokesman of the rescue headquarters, said on Wednesday.

    Bai also said the local public security department had frozen 11 million yuan (about 1.38 million U.S. dollars) in 11 accounts owned by the managerial staff and recovered 8 million yuan (about one million U.S. dollars) in cash.

    Some managerial staffs of the coal mine had rented taxis to transfer family members of the trapped miners to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Shanxi's close neighbor, to prevent them from rioting and speaking to the press, the miners said.

    Xinjing Coal Mine is a legal township coal producing entity with an annual production capacity of 90,000 tons.

    The rescue operation is still going on and investigation into the cause of the accident is under way. Enditem