At least 21 dead, dozens trapped after Iran coal mine blast

An explosion in a coal mine in northern Iran on Wednesday killed at least 21 workers and injured scores, state media reported.

The blast occurred at 12:45 p.m. local time in the Zemestanyurt mine when workers tried to jump-start a locomotive.

"Twenty-one bodies of workers ... have been taken out of the mine.... So far there have been 69 injured," a regional official in Golestan province told the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Iranian media said more than 30 of the injured were transferred to nearby hospitals.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported earlier that more than 50 workers were trapped in a two-kilometre-long tunnel filled with gas that hampered rescue efforts.

The provincial director of disaster management said 35 miners were trapped.

"We are trying to inject oxygen into the tunnel to increase the chances of survival for people who are trapped in the mine," Sadegh AliMoghadam said.

The mine has 500 workers and the explosion happened during a change of shift, Fars reported. President Hassan Rouhani has sent the minister of labour and welfare to the mine in order to oversee the rescue operations and treatment of victims, state news agency IRNA reported.

Iran extracted 1.5million tonnes of coal in 2016, an increase over previous years, thanks to an easing of international sanctions. It uses most in domestic steel production and exports only a fraction.

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Separately, at least 25 people who had entered the mine to try to save those trapped had to be taken to the hospital after inhaling the gas, said Hamidreza Montazeri, the deputy head of the emergency management department in Golestan.

Iranian news reports said the explosion happened while workers were changing shifts. Hassan Sadeghlou, Golestan's governor, told state TV that the explosion may have been caused by someone attempting to restart a locomotive engine inside the mine tunnel.

"I carried two out of the mine," an unidentified, soot-covered miner told state television earlier in the day. "It is not possible to go inside again. Oxygen tanks should be brought."

Another miner said he feared his colleagues trapped inside may have died.

"The gas in the mine exploded and my colleagues remained in the tunnel," he said.

Semi-official Iranian news agencies posted images online from the scene, showing ambulances and emergency workers gathered at the mouth of the mine. Some showed dazed workers, covered in coal dust, being helped by bystanders or lying on the ground as rescuers rushed past with oxygen bottles.