BEIJING, Feb 22: An explosion in a coal mine killed 74 miners in China’s Shanxi province on Sunday and scores more were rescued after being trapped underground for hours, Xinhua news agency reported.

The agency said 436 miners were working underground when the accident occurred at Shanxi Jiaomei Group’s Tunlan mine in Gujiao City near Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

Most miners were quickly brought to the surface but at least 60 were trapped underground. Rescuers said some of the trapped miners had managed to contact their families on their mobile phones.

Xinhua said 114 miners were in hospital and five remained in a critical condition.

The gas explosion happened the day after senior provincial officials held a conference about mine safety, in which they pledged to try to put an end to deadly mining accidents.

China’s mining industry is the world’s most dangerous, although Xinhua said the Tunlan mine had a good reputation because no accidents had occurred in the past decade.

A total of 3,786 coal miners died in gas blasts, flooding and other accidents in 2007 as companies rushed to feed demand from a booming economy. The number of deaths fell to 2,690 in the first 10 months of 2008 after thousands of small unsafe mines across the country were closed.

China is continuing to push for the closure of small mines, many of which are struggling to remain open because demand from the electricity and steel sectors, their main sources of revenue, has slumped in recent months.

The mine where Sunday’s blast took place makes coking coal for the steel industry and can produce 5 million tonnes a year, Xinhua said.

Large, state-run mines tend to have safety records approaching those of developed countries while smaller mines have little or no safety equipment and weak worker training. Government figures show that almost 80 per cent of China’s 16,000 mines are small, illegal operations.—Agencies