The death toll from a coal mine blast in northeast China has climbed to 87 as rescuers hunt for 21 workers trapped deep underground in the nation's deadliest mine disaster in two years.
The explosion tore through the state-run mine, one of the largest and oldest in China, on Saturday after a build-up of gas, survivors said.
With the main entrance blocked with debris, rescue teams equipped with oxygen tanks are entering the shaft through an adjacent mine, braving the high gas levels to search for survivors, media reports said.
The Heilongjiang Work Safety Supervision Bureau issued a statement on its website saying 87 people were confirmed dead and 21 still stuck in the mine in Hegang City, Heilongjiang province, near the border with Russia.
Rescuers have located the site where eight workers remain stuck in the shaft but it is unclear if they are alive, the China News Service reported.
"We were preparing to evacuate when the explosion occurred, sending glass and rocks flying everywhere," miner Wang Xingang told China National Radio.
"We began running out and shouting to evacuate. Smoke was everywhere; I couldn't see at all. I was trying to feel my way out from my memory of the shaft."
The explosion occurred at 2.30am on Saturday (0530 AEDT), when 528 miners were in the pit, according to a statement issued by the State Administration of Work Safety.
According to local news reports, the blast was felt 10km away.
The accident was the deadliest in the energy-hungry nation since an explosion killed 105 miners in Shanxi province in December 2007.
"I was with a group of 10 miners (when we were told to evacuate). Right now I don't know if they made it out," miner Fu Maofeng, 48, told the East Asia Trade News from his hospital bed.
Miners near the shaft entrance were told to evacuate after gas levels in the mine rose sharply, he told the paper. When he and two others reached the entrance, a huge blast ripped through the main shaft, he said.
Rescue workers have identified 28 areas in the mine, some 500m below ground, where teams were working at the time of the blast, reports said.
More than 400 miners escaped - about half of them before the blast - with more than 60 hospitalised with injuries.
"Most of the injured are suffering from compound injuries, like respiratory injuries, broken bones and gas poisoning," Pan Xiaowen, director of the Hegang general hospital, told a radio station.
"Currently six of the injured are in critical condition and the others are basically stable."
On Saturday, President Hu Jintao sent Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang to the mine to oversee the operation, state media said.
The head and vice-head of the mine and its chief engineer have been removed from their posts, the China News Service said.
China's state prosecutor will launch an inquiry to determine whether any criminal negligence led to the disaster, China Central Television said.
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