An inmate from Hunan province remains at large after knocking a hole in a prison wall and breaking out on Sunday morning.

It is the second time the inmate, 38-year-old Liu Hong, has broken out of jail, and comes amid a nationwide safety check at prisons.

More than 200 security forces and armed police are searching the mountains near Lishankou village of Hunan's Changde city, where Liu escaped from its Deshan prison.

Dogs are leading the manhunt by following traces left by the prisoner, including biscuit covers, beverage bottles and cigarette butts, said Hunan's popular web portal Rednet.cn.

"He'd have to hide indoors to survive this cold," police were quoted as saying by the website. The temperature around Deshan prison is below freezing after earlier rounds of snow and rain.

Liu, originally convicted for burglary, saw his sentence extended to 20 years this January and was transferred to Changde after an unsuccessful and undated attempt at breaking out of a prison in Yiyang county.

This time, he was believed to have escaped after knocking a hole in one of the prison's walls and fleeing over a ladder, according to local reports.

Prison security reportedly said they found out about Liu's escape around 8 am on Sunday.

He is believed to have stolen a coat, a cell phone and some money from a nearby neighborhood before fleeing on a motorcycle, prison police were quoted by local media as saying.

Zhang Yiran, political commissar at the prison, said prison management is "looking into the cause of the matter".

This is the second prison break at Deshan prison in 12 years. In March, it was applauded by provincial press as "a modern, civilized prison" that used virtue as the basis of management.

"The calm, healthy looks of convicts here are telling of the deeply harmonious environment of a modern, civilized prison," a story in Sanxiang City Press said.

An interior wall erected on the eighth anniversary of the earlier prison break bears the characters: "Responsibility is heavier than everything, safety is bigger than everything, honor is higher than everything".

The prison was named a model "educational site" by the Ministry of Justice in 2002.

The ministry ordered swift, thorough safety checks at all of China's prisons and work camps late last month, after four convicts killed a prison guard and escaped from a maximum-security prison in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.

That prison break received nationwide attention as the men somehow escaped through four gates, including one that was equipped with a biometric iris identification system.

The men were at large for 67 hours before being caught. One of them was shot dead by police in the chase.

The prison in Inner Mongolia was also endorsed by the Ministry of Justice as a national model prison. Its warden was sacked after the prison break and four other senior prison officials were suspended.