Rescue workers have found the bodies of ten miners after a gas explosion tore through an illegal coal mine in northeast China today, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Another miner was missing, but there was little hope he had survived, a local officer in charge of the rescue was quoted as saying.
The small Lixin Coal Mine in the city of Jixi was supposed to have been closed for safety checks at the time of the accident.
China is home to one of the world's biggest and deadliest mining industries. Mine disasters claimed some 7,000 people in 2001, and most individual accidents go unreported in the Chinese media.
At the weekend, rescuers recovered the bodies of eight workers from a flooded mine in China's Hunan province to the south.
Xinhua said today's explosion had been blamed on illegal operations at the mine. A rescue team was sent by the Jixi municipal government and an investigation would be carried out.
