BEIJING, May 23(Xinhuanet)-- Sun Jisheng, who has survived two deadly pit tragedies in three years, is probably the luckiest miner in China.

The 53-year-old has escaped unhurt from Thursday's gas blast in the Nuan'erhe coal mine in Hebei Province that left 40 people deadand 10 others missing. The explosion occurred at about 3:00 a.m., when 85 miners were working underground.

Sun was discovered in the shaft by rescue workers at around 4:00 a.m. on Saturday.

"When they got 200 meters underground, they found Sun trying tomake his way towards them. They got him out an hour later," Tian Ji'an, a rescue worker, was quoted as saying by the English language newspaper China Daily on Monday.

He said Sun's breathing was weak, but there was largely little else wrong with him.

The paper quoted an anonymous medical worker as saying Sun is receiving further treatment.

Sun, a native of Binggou village in Chengde county, has been working as a security guard for the mine since it was built in December 1982, it said.

In January, 2002, Sun survived a similar explosion that killed 29 and injured 11 at the same colliery, which is near the city of Chengde.

Up to 100 professional rescuers are still trying to dig any survivors out of the mine.

The State Council, the Chinese Cabinet, has set up a team in Chengde to investigate the coal mine accident. The team is headed by Zhao Tiechui, director of the State Administration of Coal MineSafety. Zhao will lead three sub-teams to investigate into causes of the accident, calculate financial losses, suggest punishment onpeople responsible for the blast and provide cautionary tips to other coal mines.

Located at Nanzhangzi Village in Bajia Township, the coal mine used to be state-owned, but was auctioned to the Beijing Guodian Zhongneng Electric Fuel Investment Co., Ltd. for 65 million yuan(about 7.8 million US dollars) in December 2003.

China's coal mine death toll in the first quarter rose 21 percent from a year ago to 1,113, according to the State Administration of Work safety, although the actual number of accidents fell by 7.4 percent to 503.

The central government has said it will spend 1.8 billion yuan(218 million US dollars) improving safety this year. Enditem