Local emergency authorities said a gas and coal explosion apparently caused the accident in the early hours of Sunday morning in Weixin County, southwestern province of Yunnan.

China launched a campaign to supervise the safety systems in all the country’s mines and check whether they comply with the measures to protect their workers.

The program is also focused on preventing explosions, cave-ins and other lethal events that are recurrent and always leave a deadly toll.

Official data show that the sector recorded more than 3,000 deaths in the last five years, a figure that nevertheless represents a 53.6 percent decrease with respect to the previous five-year period.

abo/mém/idm