BEIJING, Thursday 2 September 2010 (AFP) - A retired Chinese coal miner has found an underground solution to the country's sky-high housing costs, by carving out a new home beneath the shack he lives in, state media reported on Thursday.

Needing more room for his family but priced out of a soaring market, Chen Xinnian, 64, has spent four years digging out the subterranean chamber under his tiny house in the city of Zhengzhou, the China Youth Daily said.

So far, he has excavated 50 square metres (yards) of living space in the chamber six metres underground in the capital of Henan province, and plans to eventually have a residence with three bedrooms and a living room, it said.

Chen bought his own mining lights, helmets and other equipment for the project, using expertise from his previous work as a labourer building coal mines.

It quoted Chen saying the underground home can withstand a magnitude-eight earthquake and is both cool in summer and warm in winter.

A housing boom over the past few years has sent property prices skyrocketing across China and propelled the issue to the top of the national agenda, with untold millions finding themselves unable to purchase a home.

The government has responded this year with a series of measures to cool prices, such as tightening curbs on advance sales in new property developments, restricting loans for third home purchases and raising minimum down-payments for second homes.