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Aug. 20 (Reuters) - Chinese rescue workers frantically pumped water from flooded mine shafts on Monday to rescue around 180 miners trapped underground for three days at a colliery in Xintai, in the eastern coastal province of Shandong.

The accident was caused by a burst river dyke that sent water rushing into the shafts on Friday. It will be China's fourth deadliest mining disaster on record if the trapped miners are not saved.

Here are five of the country's worst mine disasters to date:

* On April 26, 1942, between 1,549 and 1,572 people were killed in a coal dust explosion at the Honkeiko coal mine in Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The disaster is the world's worst recorded mining accident.

* At least 214 people were killed in a February 2005 gas explosion at the Sunjiawan colliery of the state-owned Fuxin Coal Industry Group in China's northeastern province of Liaoning.

* Some 169 workers are killed in a November 2005 gas explosion at the state-owned Dongfeng coal mine in northeastern Heilongjiang province.

* One hundred and sixty-six miners are killed in a gas explosion after being ordered back into the state-owned Chenjiashan coal mine, in northwestern Shaanxi province, days after the pit caught fire in November 2004.

* An April 1991 gas explosion kills 147 coal miners at the Sanjiao River mine in northern Shanxi province. Source: Reuters

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