Xiao Shihong (in brown jacket) and Luo Jiangxia console each other on Tuesday as they wait outside the Wangjialing Coal Mine where both their husbands are trapped. Yang Shizhong / China Daily
Managers are accused of ignoring flood warnings ahead of Shanxi disaster. Hu Yinan reports from Xiangning.

At 1:40 pm on Sunday, Xiao Shihong\’s world collapsed. That was the time her husband Wang Jiming and two brothers-in-law were killed in what could well be remembered as China\’s deadliest mine accident in years.

Floods trapped at least 153 workers underground at the State-owned Wangjialing Coal Mine in Xiangning county, Shanxi province, while another 138 managed to escape, according to officials. Those figures came from a logbook in the mine\’s monitoring room, although checking in is not a habit for many workers, said employees of China National Coal Group Corp (ChinaCoal), which has a 50-percent stake in the mine.

Xiao, 38, was not even aware of the tragedy until Monday. Even as she rushed to the scene from Gujiao – the scene of a gas blast at a coal mine in Shanxi last year that killed 78 – she knew there was little hope.

"My husband is dead I don\’t need them to tell me that," she said.

Authorities have blamed the disaster on workers digging a hole in an abandoned pit filled with water. As of Tuesday night, some 60 hours after the flood, more than 1,000 rescuers from Shanxi and neighboring Henan province were installing machines to pump out water from the underground shafts. Trucks carrying pumping machines from around the region lined the narrow mountain roads to the mine.

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