HEGANG, China (AP):

When gas levels suddenly spiked deep in the Xinxing coal mine, Wang Jiguo grabbed two co-workers and they ran for their lives. Minutes later, there was a huge bang, a torrent of hot air and the earth shuddered.

Nearly two days later, at least 92 people are reported dead and 16 missing, the official Xinhua news agency said. The deadliest accident in China's mining industry for two years has highlighted how heavy demand for power-generating coal comes at a high human cost.

"Development is important, but the growth of GDP shouldn't be achieved at the price of miners' blood," said provincial governor Li Zhanshu, urging officials to better manage coal mines.

Coal is vital for China's economy, which is targeted to grow by eight per cent this year, and its 1.3 billion people, as it is used to generate about three quarters of the country's electricity.

Rescue mission

As search teams in mining carts descended yesterday, in what authorities continued to call a rescue mission, fellow miners gathered in freezing weather near the still-steaming shaft and watched silently. One veteran of Xinxing (pronounced shin-shing), now retired after 29 years, looked at the twisted metal and pancaked buildings but remembered the mine below ground as "beautiful."

The blast at the nearly 100-year-old mine in Heilongjiang (pronounced HAY-long-jeeahng) province, near the Russian border, dealt a blow to the central government's race to improve safety, which has seen the shuttering or absorbing of hundreds of smaller, private mines into state-owned operations.

The government says the closure of about 1,000 dangerous small mines last year, has helped cut fatalities. Yet, hundreds still die in major accidents each year, even at state-run mines, such as a blast in Shanxi province in February that killed 78 and a gas leak in Chongqing municipality in May that killed 30.

After Saturday's accident, the Xinxing mine's director, deputy director and chief engineer were fired, said an employee, who refused to give his name because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The explosion at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, shook the residents of Hegang, an aging city in China's Rust Belt where the streetside snow is gray with coal dust and exhaust.

Longtime residents said the mine had never suffered such an accident before.

"I had to come by and see it," said Tang Cunha, who stood behind the police tape at the blast site and compared the destruction around the mine shaft to that of a massive earthquake. "It's awful, it's awful," he said.