BAISE, Guangxi: Six of the 36 men trapped in the Nadu Mine in Tiandong, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, which was flooded on Monday, are dead, a local official said yesterday.

Zhou Zhangshi, director of the Tiandong county publicity department, said rescuers had retrieved six bodies from the flooded mine shaft, and are continuing to search for the rest of the missing miners.

Huang Yifei, a member of one of 10 rescue teams working in the mine, said: "We have searched more than 3 km underground and found six bodies."