Gas explosion kills 44, traps 65 in China coal mine

The blast ripped through the Tunlan coal mine belonging to the Shanxi Coking Coal Group in Gujiao city at about 2 am as 436 miners were working underground, the State Administration of Work Safety reported on its website.

The semi-official China News Service said the death toll had risen to 44, with 327 rescued and 65 others still missing underground by early afternoon.

More than 150 miners were admitted to hospitals in Gujiao and the nearby provincial capital of Taiyuan, including at least 24 who were in critical condition, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Most of the injured miners suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, it quoted doctors at Gujiao's Xishan Coal and Electricity Hospital as saying.

At least 11 miners died during emergency treatment, it said.

More than 80 rescue specialists were searching underground and more were on their way to the mine, Xinhua quoted the local rescue headquarters as saying.

Hospitals in Taiyuan had prepared 68 hyperbaric oxygen chambers for treating injured miners, while more than 40 ambulances were sent to the mine.

The large state-run mine has an annual capacity of 5 million tons of coal, the safety administration said.

Safety inspectors and senior officials had travelled to the mine to investigate the cause of the explosion, it said.

Accidents kill an estimated 10,000 people annually in Chinese mines. The accidents are often triggered by outdated equipment and poor safety measures with many occurring at illegal mines.

Mountainous Shanxi province is one of China's biggest coal-producing regions, with hundreds of state-run, private and illegal mines employing tens of thousands of miners, many of them migrants from other areas.