Coal mine blast kills 32 in SW Pakistan
At least 32 mine workers were killed after a methane gas explosion inside a coal mine in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, local authorities said on Friday, Xinhua reported.
The explosion occurred in a coal mine on the outskirts of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan province, where dozens of miners were working at the time of the incident.
According to the police, over 40 miners were inside the mine when the explosion occurred, and all the trapped workers are from Shangla district in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Shoaib Nosherwani, provincial minister for mines and minerals, said that rescue teams are continuing operations under extremely challenging conditions to reach the remaining workers trapped underground.
He added that an investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the accident.
Earlier, it was reported that the death toll from the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture had climbed to 34.