Bodies recovered after Mexico mine blast

on 26/07/2012 08:33:14

Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of seven miners killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in northern Mexico.

The miners suffered severe burns and were crushed by falling rock, said Francisco Contreras Obregon, the head of the civil defence force in that part of northern Coahuila state.

A total of seven men were trapped underground after what appears to have been a methane gas explosion.

The explosion occurred at the El Progreso mine, located about 90 miles (150 km) south-west of the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Methane gas is a frequent hazard in coal mines, especially the kind of primitive, small-scale mines that dot Coahuila state.

Sixty-five miners died in an explosion at another Coahuila coal mine in 2006.