The official declaration came on Wednesday: there was no hope of survival for any of the miners trapped underground by Sunday's blast at the Chenjiashan Coalmine in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Many of the hundreds of anxious family members who had been waiting for days for news collapsed as they cried out their grief.

For two days, 52-year-old Dong Linan kept himself busy circulating through the crowd in hope of getting any information about his 24-year-old son, who was trapped in the mine.

"Don't ask me anything. Nothing. I don't want to say anything," said Dong. "I just feel my heart totally empty."

His son recently brought home his first two months' wages from the mine, 1,500 yuan (US$180). His father told him to save it so that he could have enough money to get married.

Most of the miners were the sole breadwinners in families, many supporting both their children and elderly parents, said one woman at site.

Most of the trapped miners are locals, but others are from neighboring Henan Province.

Early Thursday morning, three more explosions took place in the mine. There were no new casualties, although 61 recovery team members were in the tunnels, according to the operations headquarters.

The blasts, which were not entirely unexpected, took place at 3:25, 6:15 and 7:40 AM.

Experts said the Chenjiashan mine has a complex geological structure with coal, oil and gas intergrowth, and high gas density.

According to a survey made on Tuesday by recovery teams just 800 meters inside the mine, the gas density was 9 percent, very likely to explode, and the density of carbon monoxide was a lethal 0.1 percent.

Wang Xianzheng, director of the National Production Safety Supervision and Administration Bureau, said that recovery operations were complicated by the high density of gas and fires in the mine.

"Improving ventilation may reduce the gas density, but increase the risk of fire; reducing ventilation may cut the risk of fire, but increase the density of gas," he said.

Wang said they plan to close No. 415 work area, where Sunday's blast took place, and fill it with water and nitrogen to put out the fire there.

Prior to Thursday's explosions, a total of 35 bodies of the trapped miners had been brought out of the mine.

Some 293 miners were working underground on November 28 when the gas explosion occurred at coal pits 8,000 meters from the entrance. Only 127 men working near the mine's mouth escaped, 43 of them injured.

Meanwhile, Liang Jiakun, deputy director of the production safety bureau, said on Wednesday at a two-day International Symposium on Coal Bed Methane in China that the government has already invested 5.3 billion yuan (US$610 million) over the past three years to enhance coal mine safety, most of it used to improve the release of dangerous methane gas.

The government has also implemented policies, including tax reductions or duty exemptions, to encourage enterprises to control gas discharge in the mines.

Nevertheless, said Liang, more than 40 percent of China's coal mine accidents have been caused by methane gas.

(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily and China.org.cn December 2, 2004)