CHINA: Rescuers continued to try to save 141 Chinese workers trapped deep down a mine shaft after an underground gas explosion but they said air was running out and the miners' chances of survival were slight.
At least 25 of their co-workers have already died in the latest colliery disaster in China, home of the world's most dangerous mining industry, while so far 127 miners escaped with their lives.
The blast happened on Sunday in the state-owned Chenjiashan coal mine in the industrial province of Shaanxi in northern China.
Rescuers said they were pumping poisonous gases out of the shaft but said those left trapped had only an "extremely slight" chance of survival because there was no air left in the underground cache where they were trapped.
"It'll be very difficult to find any survivors," said one rescue worker. "The 25 dead were found far from the blast site, but those still trapped were near the site of the explosion."
The explosion took place 10 kilometres from the mouth of the mine.
It took an hour to get to the site of the blast, with rescue workers fighting heavy clouds of black smoke and carbon monoxide.
The explosion may prove to be the worst loss of life in four years in an industry which has produced a spate of accidents in recent weeks.
In a blast in October in the central province of Henan, 148 died, and 33 were killed this month in the same province.
China's coalmines have a truly dreadful safety record - the government says the country's mines accounted for 80 per cent of the world's coal mining-related deaths last year.
According to official figures, there were 4,153 coalmine deaths in the first nine months of this year, down 13 per cent from the same period last year.