Zuoyun, China ? Electricity shortages slowed attempts to clear a flooded mine shaft Monday, and residents began to lose hope for 57 miners trapped for a fourth day in China’s worst mining accident this year.

Rescuers threaded hoses into the main shaft and carted steel pipes into a secondary entrance to the Xinjing mine in the dusty north China hill country, where poverty and China’s massive appetite for energy are fueling risky and often deadly mining practices.

The rescue effort has run into problems. Rescuers said they didn’t have enough electricity to drive the pumps. The teams worked without apparent haste. With no ambulance or medical personnel on the site, it appeared rescuers were not expecting to find anyone alive from Thursday’s accident.

The undercurrent of pessimism added to an emerging picture that the Xinjing mine was chaotically managed and indifferent to safety. China’s top work safety official, Li Yizhong, on Monday accused its managers of sending miners into a coal seam beyond its approved area and other officials alleged the managers tried to cover up the accident.

Mine manager Li Fuyuan and at least eight other officials have been detained for questioning, although the mine’s owner fled, state media reported.

Rescuers install a large pipe for pumping out water in the Xinjing coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province. Fifty-seven miners have been trapped underground since Thursday.

“There’s no such thing as accidents. They’re all caused by human factors,” said Fang Zhipeng, a 47-year-old worker at a neighboring mine and one of scores of onlookers watching the rescue workers at Xinjing.

Such negligence is common in China, where coal is an addiction and the mines are among the deadliest in the world, with about 6,000 deaths a year. China relies on coal for two-thirds of the energy needed to fuel the robust economy. Mines routinely disregard safety regulations in order to mine more coal and make more money.