A dawn explosion in a Chinese coal mine killed 20 and trapped 17 workers underground today in the country’s central region, a national work safety official said.

Crews searching for any sign of six miners trapped for more than three weeks are “hoping a miracle could happen”, a US federal official told lawmakers.

The search for six men trapped inside a collapsed coal mine continued today, despite three weeks of drilling and digging that have revealed no signs of life.

At least 16 people were killed when a methane explosion tore through a coal mine in Siberia, emergency officials said.

It wasn’t a fancy US homecoming, just some red balloons, handmade signs, a lot of hugs and his wife’s home-made lasagne - but it was everything the only survivor of the Sago Mine disaster wanted after a three-month recovery that continues to amaze doctors.

A large photograph of Jerry Lee Groves in a mine sat next to his closed casket today, along with dozens of flowers carrying notes of sympathy.

A gas blast at a coal mine in northern China killed 20 people, the government said today, shortly after an unrelated mine explosion left 30 dead and 20 missing.

A delegation from the Oireachtas Committee on Marine and Natural Resources is due to visit Co Tipperary today to view the pollution caused by the Silvermines mine.

Emergency workers stopped the flow of water into a flooded mine in southern Russia where 13 miners have been trapped for five days, officials said, as drillers came within yards of the men’s presumed location.

Rescue workers today began lifting to the surface 46 miners trapped underground in a flooded coal mine for nearly two days in southern Russia.

The body of the last of a group of workers has been found after a blast at a Ukraine mine.

The Chinese government today promised things would get better after a month that saw more than 200 people die in workplace accidents.

A gas explosion in a northeastern Chinese coal mine has killed at least 39 miners today, the latest tragedy to strike the nation’s notoriously deadly mining industry.