Three coal miners died from suffocation due to the presence of poisonous gas inside a coal mine in Balochistan's Harnai district on Monday morning, an official of the Balochistan Levies Force said.

The miners were extracting coal from a mine thousands of feet deep when poisonous gas filled the space, killing all three, the Levies official said.

Following the incident, rescue teams reached the site and retrieved the bodies from the mine. The bodies were then transferred to District Headquarter Hospital Harnai, said medical officer Juma Khan Buzdar.

All the victims belonged to Pishin district of Balochistan, Buzdar said.

This incident comes days after four coal miners were killed in a similar incident in Quetta's Sanjadi area.

Working conditions inside Balochistan's coal mines are extremely poor and the authorities appear to be least bothered about the plight of coal miners, Peer Muhammad Kakar, a labour leader told Dawn.

He said that the owners of the coal mines earn money at the cost of lives of innocent and poverty-hit coal miners.

Kakar demanded of the Balochistan government to take practical steps for improvement of working conditions for coal miners in the province.