A methane gas explosion in a coal mine in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday killed nine miners while three others were still trapped, police said.
The incident occurred in Akhorwal area of Derra Adam Khel town of Kohat district due to the accumulation of methane gas, police said.
According to police, bodies of nine trapped labourers have been recovered while efforts are under way to rescue the remaining three miners trapped inside the coal mine owned by Haji Firdous.
The police said that so far three miners have been injured in the accident and they have been shifted to a nearby hospital.
Mining is considered highly dangerous in Pakistan where dozens of miners are killed each year due to lack of modern mining facilities, training and equipment.
According to the Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF), about 100 to 200 labourers die on average in coal mine accidents every year.
Explosions of this nature are not uncommon in coal mines in Pakistan, most of which are located in Balochistan and Sindh.
In August, 13 miners were killed in Balochistan's Sanjidi after a mine collapsed. Two others suffocated to death in an accident on September 2 in Balochistan's Much tehsil. PTI AYZ
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Nine killed in Pakistan coal mine collapse =(Picture)= PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sept 12, 2018 (AFP) - Nine miners were killed and four injured when the roof of a coal mine collapsed on Wednesday in Pakistan's northwestern town of Darra Adam Khel, officials said. The incident, the second fatal coal mining accident in Pakistan in a month, happened in Akhurwal village as workers entered the coal mine at the start of the day, senior local administration official Shahid Ilyas told AFP. He said the nine bodies and all the injured workers were later pulled out of the mine, with two seriously wounded. A senior local police official, Muhammad Ejaz, confirmed the incident and said they were investigating. Pakistan's coal mines are notorious for poor safety standards. At least 18 miners were killed after a blast tore through a coal mine in Sinjidi village near the southwestern city of Quetta on August 13. In a similar incident, at least 43 miners were killed in Sorange district of Balochistan in 2011.
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