Casualties Reported after Iran Coal Mine Explosion

A large explosion has struck a coal mine in northern Iran, trapping at least 80 miners, according to state media.

State news agency IRNA quoted a local official as saying that some of the trapped miners may have died in the blast at the Zemestanyurt mine, about 14km outside the town of Azadshahr.

Press TV, the English service of Iranian state television, reported that at least two miners had lost their lives and scores of others were wounded in the explosion.

The blast happened at 12:45pm (09:45 GMT), at a time when workers were changing shifts, according to local media.

More than 500 people are employed at the mine, IRNA said.

Hamidreza Montazeri, deputy head of Golestan Provinces’ emergency services, said that 25 people, who had entered the mine to help the trapped miners, had been taken to hospital due to gas inhalation.

Some 21 people have been so far taken out of the mine, according to media reports.

“One of the injured miners is in critical condition and other injured miners are being treated for asphyxiation,” Pir-Hossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Emergency Centre, said.

Iran extracted 1.68m tonnes of coal in 2016, an increase on previous years, thanks to an easing of international sanctions. It exports only a fraction of the coal and uses most of it in domestic steel production.

This is not the first disaster to strike Iran’s mining industry. In 2013, some 11 workers were killed in two separate mining incidents. In 2009, some 20 workers were killed in several incidents.