Beijing: With rescuers finding 11 bodies more than two days after a goldmine subsided in Tibet, hopes of saving the remaining 72 miners receded with unnamed officials saying on Sunday they were feared dead. Hampering operations was the break down of the excavator and severe damage to the narrow roads leading to the mine following the landslide.

The workers are buried 30 metres deep into the mine. Many rescuers were found digging into the debris with bare hands, state media said, adding that two of the buried workers were Tibetans, and that two were women. The administration said all the workers in the gold mine in Maizhokunggar County, 68 km from the regional capital of Lhasa, had been identified. The landslide covers an area of three sq km at the Jiama Copper Gold Polymetallic Mine.