Chinese police have caught a man who allegedly organized illegal mining activities at an abandoned iron mine in the eastern Anhui Province, where 12 farmers were buried and feared dead after a June 25 cave-in.

Jin Qianlong, of Machang Village, Fanchang County, fled after the cave-in at the mine in Fanchang. It is owned by Taochong Mining Co., a division of Ma'anshan Steel Group, said a Fanchang Public Security Bureau official.

He traveled to Shanghai and some cities in Anhui and was apprehended by local police in neighboring Jiangsu Province when he went to a private house in Nantong City on July 12.

Local police detained Jin's accomplice, Yu Xuekun, also from Machang.

Rescuers have failed to find any survivors among those buried, among them four women.

The cave-in zone was at a mine abandoned by the mining company. Local farmers, however, often conducted illegal mining activity.

(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2008)