Bodies of 13 trapped miners recovered

The bodies of all 13 workers trapped nearly two weeks ago when a coal mine in northeastern China flooded were recovered, authorities said Monday.Rescue efforts failed to save any of the 13 who were trapped when their Jindi coal mine in Heilongjiang province flooded Oct. 11, the news agency Xinhua reported, quoting the director of the local municipal safety supervision bureau in the city of Jixi.Twenty-four miners were working underground when the flooding occurred, but 11 of them escaped.The state-run news agency said the owner of the privately owned mine tried to cover up the accident and has since been detained. Three municipal officials also have been dismissed over the alleged coverup, the report said.There have been a number of mine disasters in the country in recent years despite massive efforts to improve safety and crackdown on illegal mines.An official report last year said about half of China's 5.5 million coal miners are migrant workers, many of whom are not adequately trained in basic safety rules.Seventeen miners died earlier this month after a massive buildup of gas in a coal mine in southwestern China's Guizhou province. The provincial governor was quoted by official media as blaming such accidents on the failure to close unsafe mines.