Fifty-four miners are dead and 22 were still missing last night after an explosion at a coal mine in Hebei Province, the third major mining accident in the country in the past two weeks.

The Liuguantun Colliery in Kaiping District of Tangshan City exploded about 3:30pm yesterday, while 186 miners were working underground.

By late last night, 110 miners had escaped the mine, but 22 others were still trapped in the coal pit. Rescuers were searching for the missing miners late last night.

The formerly state-run mine was privatized in 2002.

Upon receiving a report about the tragedy, Hebei's vice governor Fu Shuangjian and leading officials from the provincial industrial safety watchdog rushed to the mine to direct rescue operations and organize an investigation into the accident.

A delegation from the central government, led by Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, headed to the mine last night to investigate the situation.

The disaster comes less than a week after 42 miners were trapped in an underground flood last Friday at the privately owned Sigou Coal Mine in Henan.

Less than two weeks ago, 171 people were killed in a coal mine blast in Qitaihe, northeast Heilongjiang Province. That was the worst mine accident since February, when 214 miners died in an explosion in northern Liaoning Province.

While the central government is urging local government and mine owners to improve safety measures, lives continue to be sacrificed at an alarming rate.

Nationwide, 1,544 coal miners have died in 53 "major" disasters - those with at least 10 fatalities - between January and November of this year, according to the State Administration of Work Safety.

As rescuers continue to search for the 42 miners trapped somewhere underground after a coal mine flooded in central China's Henan Province, stern punishments have been handed out to those responsible for the accident.

Ten officials from Sigou Coal Mine had been detained as of yesterday.

Mine owner Li Jianwei was captured yesterday after he fled to southwest China's Gansu Province following the accident.

Henan enacted a new rule this week, saying mines operating illegally will be fined 1 million yuan (US$123,700) for each miner killed in an accident. Henan is one of the country's biggest coal producers, and the site of many fatal accidents.

In addition, coal mines found to engage in production without proper licenses will be fined between 2 million yuan and 5 million yuan, and forced to close.

Four officials in Hebei Province were sentenced to three years in jail on Tuesday for dereliction of duty in a deadly coal mine fire more than a year ago, according to the provincial procuratorate. They were given a five-year reprieve, however, so if they stay out of trouble during that period their jail terms might be waived.

The four officials were in charge of production safety in the city of Shahe, where a mine fire killed 70 people.

Following cave-ins at three mines in the same province, five officials, including a county-level security supervision bureau chief, were detained recently for dereliction of duty.

The cave-ins took place on November 6 in three plaster mines in Xingtai County, leaving 33 miners dead and causing 7.44 million yuan in economic losses.

An initial investigation showed that the five officials had turned a blind eye to safety problems in the unlicensed mines and allowed their operation.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate has started an investigation into the case along with local authorities.