Eleven miners have been confirmed dead in Friday's gas outburst at a coal mine in north China's Hebei Province, rescuers said on Tuesday.

All the bodies of the miners had been retrieved by Tuesday morning, according to the emergency rescue headquarters based at the Tao'er coal mine in Handan, an industrial city.

The accident occurred at 12:25 PM on Friday. Altogether 560 miners were working in the pit and 549 of them managed to escape, said Cheng Xianguo, deputy manager and spokesman of the mine.

Rescuers used fans to dissipate gas in the shafts and took turns entering the pit to search for victims, Cheng said.

Tao'er mine started operating in 1982 with a designed capacity of 900,000 tons a year. It is run by the state-owned mining company, Jinneng Hankuang Group.

Rescuers at another mine in Handan, are still searching for eight trapped miners who are feared to have been killed after an explosion on Thursday.

Nine workers died instantly and two others were injured at the Dashucun coal mine in an outburst of 1,200 tons of coal powder that reached out at least 91 meters last Thursday.

Dashucun is also state-owned, with an annual output of 900,000 tons.

(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2007)