Frantic relatives of 181 Chinese miners trapped by flash floods hundreds of metres underground scuffled with security forces today as they criticised rescue efforts.

More than 200 people massed at the mine entrance toppled an iron fence and broke into the compound, desperate to discover the fate of missing husbands and fathers in what threatens to become one of China’s deadliest ever mining disasters.

Li Chuanmei said her 42-year-old brother was one of the missing. “No one has said anything about what is happening. They are treating these people like they are sacrificial goods.”

An official had earlier given them little cause for hope. “I’d guess that the miners down the shaft have no hope of survival,” said the chief rescue officer, Zhu Wenyu, according to state media.

The accident was triggered when the torrential rains that have lashed swaths of China this summer breached a river levee and sent water cascading into the Zhangzhuang mine via an old shaft. More than 750 men were underground when the waters rushed in but most managed to escape. Officials said 172 were trapped.

Nine other miners were also missing after the flash floods poured into a nearby mine.

The Zhangzhuang mine, in eastern Shandong province, some 450 kilometres south of Beijing, is owned by the Huayuan Mining Co. Rescue teams, with help from the army, battled all day Saturday to close the breach in the levee.

President Hu Jintao urged rescuers to “take all necessary measures to rescue the trapped miners,” Xinhua news agency reported. However, officials at the scene held out little hope for the missing men and the absence of obvious signs of rescue activity exacerbated the distress of their families.

Li Xuehua screamed: “Save my little brother. Get him out.” Two relatives propped up the desperate woman. But stone-faced officials turned down pleas from relatives for news of the missing men.

Zhou Jun, the 19-year-old son of one trapped miner, had travelled from the coastal city of Qingdao to be close to his father. After officials could give him no news, the teenager collapsed and was taken to hospital.

Senior officials reported today that the levee had been restored. “This is the first step, which is good. Now we are preparing to pump water out of the mine before sending in rescue workers,” said Wang Dequan, a spokesman for the Taian city government. “There is a lot of water to be pumped.”

The main state television news did not mention the disaster until the end of its evening broadcast, devoting just a minute to reports of efforts to pump out the water and making no mention of how many miners were missing — a sign of the seriousness of the situation.

China prefers to limit the amount of bad news that it tells its people, and just last week ordered a new campaign to ensure that most of the news is good in the run-up to a crucial five-yearly Congress of the ruling Communist Party expected in October.

Its coal mines are the world’s deadliest, with thousands of fatalities each year in fires, floods and other disasters. Many are blamed on managers who disregard safety rules.

The Government has promised for years to improve mine safety, but the country depends on coal for most of its electric power and its economic boom has created voracious demand.

Production has more than doubled since 2000. The deadliest reported coalmine disaster since the 1949 Communist revolution was an explosion that killed 214 miners in 2005 in northeastern Liaoning province.

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