Thirty-six miners were trapped underground by flooding yesterday in a small coal mine in southwestern China.

Shortly after noon yesterday, 80 miners were working in the Tianchi Coal Mine in Sinan County, Guizhou Province, when the flooding occurred, local authorities said.

Forty-four workers escaped.

Local officials said it was hard to tell whether the trapped miners could survive.

The latest disaster came as the government was still investigating a mine explosion in the north that killed 33 people in Shanxi Province last Thursday.

(Shanghai Daily December 13, 2004)