A COAL miner has been pulled alive from a pit in northern China after surviving five days underground in appalling conditions, but 18 of his co-workers have been found dead, state media said. The man was rescued from the Chiyu mine in Huozhou city, Shanxi province, in the early hours of this morning, the state Xinhua news agency said. The miner was taken to hospital and was in a critical condition, the report said. Only hours before, officials had told the agency that hope was fading fast for all 19 miners, who were trapped 60m underground early last Sunday after faulty electrical wiring in the main shaft ignited a fire. Rescuers and doctors entered the shaft as early as Wednesday but were unable to advance because of high temperatures, dense smoke and large amounts of poisonous carbon monoxide, Xinhua reported. The bodies of the 18 other miners, who died from suffocation and carbon monoxide poisoning, have been removed from the mine. Police on Wednesday arrested eight people in connection with the accident, including the mine's manager, Xinhua reported. "Initial investigations showed that the mine had no adequate safety systems and its owner, in order to evade safety checks, had ordered the miners to work secretly at night," it said. Efforts by officials to reduce the appalling death toll in China's mines are greatly hampered by the existence of huge numbers of small pits, often illegally operated. Foreign experts, backed by some state statistics, put the annual toll in Chinese mines at more than 10,000. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4869392%255E40...