Emergency workers have recovered 28 bodies from a mine in China's Inner Mongolia region that flooded in early-March, leaving three people still unaccounted for, state news agency Xinhua reported Sunday.
The workers had spent weeks draining the Luotuoshan coal mine, filling it with 8,000 cubic metres of rubble and pumping out more than 1.3 million cubic metres of water, said Xu Yongfeng, the deputy general manager of Wuhai Energy, the mine's owner.
On Sunday, 15 bodies were lifted out of the shaft, after 13 were recovered earlier, the rescue headquarters said. One other person died while receiving first aid treatment at the site, bringing the total number of deaths to 32.
Water gushed into the pit on March 1 and rescue efforts were declared finished two weeks later as no signs of life were detected.
China's vast coal mining industry is notoriously accident prone, with about 2,600 people killed last year due mainly to lax regulation, corruption and inefficiency.
Inner Mongolia, located in the north of the country, is one of the country's largest coal producing regions, rivalling the coal heartland of Shanxi.
Wuhai Energy is part of the mining giant Shenhua Group.
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