China mine death toll up to 107: spokesman

Rescuers have found three more bodies in a coal mine in northeastern China that was hit by a massive gas blast, bringing the confirmed death toll to 107, according to a mine spokesman.

A relative cries after the funeral of one of the miners killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine here in Hegang in China's northeast Heilongjiang province. Rescuers have found three more bodies in the coal mine, bringing the confirmed death toll to 107.

The new toll makes Saturday's tragedy in the city of Hegang in northeastern China the deadliest reported accident in the country's disaster-prone mining industry for more than four years.

Officials had previously confirmed 104 people dead and four missing but a spokesman for the majority state-owned Xinxing mine said two bodies were recovered early Wednesday morning.

"We have found two of the missing people," spokesman Zhang Jinguang told AFP.

He said rescuers were still trying to reach the other two missing miners to confirm their fate but the leader of the rescue effort, Zhang Fucheng, had already said on Tuesday that they were "definitely dead".

The recovery of the two bodies makes the disaster the deadliest in China since 123 people were killed when a mine in southern Guangdong province flooded in August 2005.

Relatives of victims killed and hurt in Saturday's blast have angrily demanded answers about the disaster as officials said a preliminary probe pointed to poor management at the mine, one of China's oldest and largest.

Press reports have quoted Zhao Tiechui, deputy head of the state work safety agency, as saying the mine was overcrowded and insufficiently ventilated, contributing to the high toll as volatile gases built up in the mine and exploded.

The tragedy has reignited nationwide hand-wringing over poor safety and working conditions in the country's mining sector, in which thousands of miners are reported killed each year in accidents.