Five pumps were used to drain water from the Huayuan Coal Mine and Minggong Coal Mine, the state media reported on Monday.
The water level in Huayuan Coal Mine, about 150 kilometres south of Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong, continued to drop after the levee that breached and caused the flooding was repaired early on Sunday.
By morning the water level in the mine, where four pumps were operating, had fallen by 8.9 metres in 12 hours.
But rescuers say it will take at least half a month to drain all the flooded water from Huayuan Coal Mine, claiming the chances for survival of the miners were slim.
The flooding occurred on Friday, first at the Huayuan Coal Mine in Xintai City. Later, Minggong Coal Mine, 10 km from the Huayuan Mine, got flooded.
When the flooding struck, 756 miners were working underground at Huayuan Coal Mine and 584 managed to escape.
Ninety-five miners were working inside the Minggong mine by the time the flooding occurred and 86 escaped.
Rains recording 232 mm had swept Xintai on Friday and early Monday, triggering a flash flood and a 50-metre breach in a levee on the Wenhe River.
Floodwater
Floodwater from the river poured through an obsolete shaft into the Huayuan Mine on Friday afternoon.
Four temporary working groups have been set up to deal with the aftermath of the flooding at both mines, including one for compensation and another for the reception of relatives of the trapped miners.
Of the 172 trapped miners at Huayuan Coal Mine, 111 were confirmed to be formally employed and the rest were said to be transient rural workers.
Huayuan Mining Co. Ltd, built in 1957, is a licensed enterprise with an annual capacity of 750,000 tonnes.
A total of 1,792 coal miners died in 1,066 mishaps in China, the world’s top coal producer and consumer, during the first half (January-June) of this year.
In the year 2006, coal mine accidents killed a total of 4,746 people in the country, an average of 13 deaths per day.