FUXIN, Feb 16 (AP) -- The numbers don't lie. Chinese miners die at a rate of about 16 per day, lost to floods, fires and explosions. This week, the industry suffered its worst accident in decades with more than 200 dead in a single blast.

But miners here say they cherish their jobs.

In a chilly building in northeastern Liaoning province just kilometers (miles) from where at least 210 workers died Monday in a methane gas explosion, a group of miners in grimy overalls and hard hats sat huddled around a coal burner, smoking and having a rest.

"I'm not too worried," said Zhang Jun, 40, a Fuxin miner. "Everybody has to make a living and this is a good way to make a living."

Last year 6,027 workers were killed in China's coal mines -- 407 fewer than the number of fatalities in 2003.

Zhang's attitude highlights the central dilemma for many of China's mine workers. The work may be dangerous, but the pay far exceeds what they could make elsewhere.

While the Chinese government has repeatedly promised to improve mine safety, it still bans independent labor unions that have played such an important role in other parts of the world in improving workplace safety.

Mine owners and local officials are frequently blamed for putting profits ahead of safeguards, especially as the nation's soaring energy needs increase demand for coal.

Five miners remained missing from Monday's blast at the Sunjiawan mine near Fuxin, a city of 1 million in China's northeastern rust belt -- a region of crumbling, antiquated industries.

Coal is used to fuel those factories, heat homes and keep power plants running. In winter, local women wear white surgical masks as a protection against the acrid coal smoke that saturates the air, coating everything with black grime.

Asked if he'd want his son to work in a mine, too, Zhang said, "Oh sure, it's a good job."

Despite the extreme hazards of his job, Zhang belongs to China's industrial elite, earning about 30,000 yuan (US$3,600) a year -- 10 times the annual rural average of about 3,000 yuan (US$360). The national average is about US$1,000 (€700).

Miners have been tunneling through the surrounding forested hills since the late 1800s. In the 1950s to 1970s, the coal industry employed hundreds of thousands of workers and was the city's mainstay. But by the early 1990s, many of Fuxin's mines were already depleted.

To reach coal deposits, miners work far underground, where the risks from methane-gas explosions are highest.

The Sunjiawan colliery is part of the Fuxin Mine Group Co., a huge, state-owned industrial group that once employed several hundred thousand miners. The company's Web site now says it employs 82,000.

"I'm not from a mining family and we used to always envy them when I was growing up," said Zhu Guodong, a driver whose family scraped along by trading and running small shops.

"They always had food to eat," Zhu said. "Always had a place to live."