LINFEN, Shanxi: Rescuers have recovered seven more bodies after Wednesday's coal mine blast in North China's coal-rich province of Shanxi, bringing the total number of deaths to 26, local authorities said yesterday.

The gas explosion occurred about 11:30 am on Wednesday at the Yujialing Coal Mine located at the Yipingyuan Township, Yaodu District of Linfen, about 300 kilometer southwest of Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

A total of 106 miners were working underground at time of the explosion, but only 80 managed to escape, including one who was severely injured and is being treated in hospital, according to the rescue team led by Deputy Governor of Shanxi, Jin Shanzhong.

More than 100 rescuers, including local coal mine salvation teams and the local police, tried to save the 26 miners who were trapped in the mine.

Rescuers who went down the mine shafts said the underground shafts were over-exploited, and have turned porous like "spiders' webs".

Mine owner Zhou Xiaogen and senior manager Li Mingshun, along with several others, have been taken into custody, local police said. Preliminary investigations show that working conditions in the mine were unsafe and chaotic before the accident occurred, the police said.

The coal mine produced an annual output capacity of 150,000 tons, but its production licence, which showed an annual capacity of 90,000 tons, had expired, according to local coal mine safety authorities.

This is the second coal mine gas explosion in Shanxi, China's major coal producing base, in 10 days, following another accident in Jincheng on March 18, which killed 21 miners.

Coal mine accidents killed 4,746 people in 2006 and 357 in the first two months this year, according to figures from the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS).

China has set a goal of reducing the death rate to 2.1 fatalities for every 1 million tons of coal produced by 2010, down from 2.81 fatalities in 2005. The 2005 figure was 70 times the United States figure and seven times the figures in Russia and India.

Source: China Daily - Xinhua