The first, an explosion, occurred Monday night local time at the Wangzhuang colliery in Baofeng County, a privately owned operation in Henan province, Xinhua news service reported.

The mine’s owner fled following the blast, which officials told the service is affecting their ability to determine rescue plans to get the remaining 33 workers to the surface. It has a reputation for being gassy with poor ventilation systems.

The second incident also occurred on Monday, this time due to flooding at a mine in Zhuzhou City, Hunan province and trapping 12. Rescue efforts, including pumping, were being slowed by rainy weather.

During the first calendar quarter of 2007, mine accidents fell 22.8% to 336 and deaths declined 15.6% to 661 throughout China over the same time in 2006. Despite the drop, Chinese officials are kicking off another crackdown on mine incident cover-ups and false reporting, Xinhua said.

In the month of March alone, an official told the service, the deaths again began an upward trend with 83 workers killed and missing from March 19 to 25 – a nearly 90% increase over last year. In four cases during February and March, cases of “dishonest reporting” of the incidents were discovered.

“The frequent dishonest reporting of coal mine accidents delayed rescue work and had an extremely bad impact on the public, " an official was quoted as saying.

To counter the problem, the Chinese Government is now looking to increase penalties for those individuals and mines that make false claims or attempt to hide accident activity.