Nineteen prisoners working in a coal mine in southwestern China have been trapped by flooding for two days, a local official said on Wednesday.
The flooding happened at the Dafa Coal Mine in Sichuan province's Lingshui county, according to a local official who identified himself only by his surname of You.
According to You, the nineteen trapped in the mine are all people who have been sentenced to reform through labor, a frequently used administrative punishment in China.
Local authorities are trying to save the trapped prisoners by pumping out water from the mine, he said.
The Sina.com website said the accident occurred when groundwater suddenly broke into the mine shaft at 9:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Monday.
Five of the people working in the mine at the time managed to escape, the website said.
Work in the reform through labor system ("laogai") is generally harsher than ordinary prison work and frequently takes place in remote locations, according to the US-based Laogai Research Foundation.
China, which is the world's biggest coal producer and consumer, is known for its bad mine safety record.
An average of 10,000 miners have died in accidents every year over the last few years.
China suffered one of its worst accidents in a decade when 160 miners were killed after a gas explosion ripped through Muchonggou mine in southwestern Guizhou province at the end of September -- BEIJING (AFP)
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