Voice ofIran An explosion in a coal mine in northern Iran on Wednesday- coal mine explosion kills 35

Voice ofIran
An explosion in a coal mine in northern Iran on Wednesday
coal mine explosion kills 35
People gather at the site of an explosion in a coal mine in Golestan Province, in northern Iran.An explosion in a coal mine in northern Iran on Wednesday killed at least 21 workers and injured scores, state media reported.The blast occurred at 12:45 p.m. local time (0745 GMT) in the Zemestanyurt mine when workers tried to jump-start a locomotive.
‘Twenty-one bodies of workers …have been taken out of the mine …So far there have been 69 injured,’ a regional official in Golestan province said.
Iranian media said more than 30 of the injured were transferred to nearby hospitals.The semi-official Fars news agency reported earlier that more than 50 workers were trapped in a two-kilometre-long tunnel filled with gas that hampered rescue efforts.The mine has 500 workers and the explosion happened during a change of shiftIran extracted 1.68 million tons of coal in 2016, an increase on previous years. It uses most in domestic steel production and exports only a fraction.