Colliery blast, fire leave 3 dead, 6 missing in Hunan
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-09 16:07

Three miners were confirmed dead and six others missing in gas blast that led to a fire in a coal mine in Shaodong County, central China's Hunan Province, early Thursday.

Rescuers had recovered the bodies of three miners by 11:30 a.m.and they were searching for the six missing miners.

The blast occurred at 5:18 a.m. in the Shuijingtou Coal Mine inShaodong County, 200 kilometers from the provincial capital of Changsha. Two miners escaped and another one was rescued out of the coal mine later.

The blast happened at a workface of the Shuijingtou Coal Mine, and the fire following the gas blast hampered the rescue efforts, said Li Lianshan, director of Hunan Provincial Coal Industry Bureau.

Investigation into the cause of the blast is still under way.

Shuijingtou Coal Mine belongs to the state-owned Lianshao Mining Group Co., Ltd., which boasts ten pairs of shafts with a combined annual production capacity of over 1.7 million tons. Shuijingtou Coal Mine has an annual output capacity of 150,000 tons. It generated 120,000 tons of coal last year.