BEIJING, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A fire killed at least six coal miners in eastern China, and the bodies of five others were pulled from a flooded shaft in the southwest, state media said on Sunday, latest casualties in the world's deadliest mining sector.

China, the largest producer and consumer of coal, has been battling to improve safety standards in its mines, but accidents are common as owners push production beyond safety limits to meet robust demand to fuel the country's economic boom.

On Saturday, Beijing reported that deaths from accidents at Chinese coal mines dropped one fifth in 2007 from the previous year, although 3,786 people still lost their lives.

That was a big improvement over 2005, when the death toll was nearer to 6,000, the official Xinhua news agency said.

In the latest accident, six miners were confirmed dead and one remained missing after fire broke out on Saturday in a colliery in the eastern province of Jiangxi, the agency said.

Rescuers were still searching for the missing man, although chances he had survived were slim, a local government spokesman said.

Investigators said a short circuit might have ignited underground cables, setting off the fire and sending toxic gas through the pit more than 100 meters underground at the mine in Yanshan County.

Separately, Xinhua reported that rescuers in the southwestern province of Sichuan had recovered the bodies of all five miners trapped in a flooded shaft on Thursday.

The owner and managers of the colliery in Kaijiang County had been taken into police custody and an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the flood, Xinhua said. (Reporting by Ken Wills; editing by Roger Crabb)

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