Seven miners have been killed in an accident inside a coal mine in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan.
A mining inspector told RFE/RL on March 20 that the men were trapped in the mine, but it wasn’t clear if they died when the mine caved in or if they suffocated from poisonous gas.
AP later quoted a provincial mining official as describing it as an explosion.
Shafqat Mahmood, a mine inspector in Baluchistan Province, said that rescue workers pulled three injured miners from the mine.
All the bodies were also recovered, he said.
Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the blast.
The mine is near Degari, a town about 100 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Quetta.
Safety standards are commonly ignored in the coal mining industry in Pakistan, leading to accidents and explosions that have killed numerous mine workers in recent years.