26 coal mine workers killed, 21 trapped after gas blast

Beijing: In one of the worst mine accidents in China in recent months, at least 26 miners were killed and 21 others remained trapped underground after a gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in southwest China, officials said on Thursday.

The death toll kept mounting after a blast in the mine in southwest China's Sichuan Province, last evening.

Twenty-one miners remained trapped underground, and their condition was not immediately known, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Rescue efforts at the Xiaojiawan Coal Mine in the city of Panzhihua were proceeding but were hampered by high temperatures in the gas-filled pit, according to the headquarters.

Temperatures reached 80 to 90 degrees centigrade and carbon monoxide was dense in the zone where the miners were trapped.