An explosion at a coal mine in north China on Wednesday killed at least 21 workers and injured 36, the government said, in the latest incident to hit the country’s disaster-plagued mining industry.

China reported its seventh and eighth bird ‘flu outbreaks in three weeks today, while Vietnam – which has suffered most of Asia’s human deaths from the virus – ordered police and the military to help fight the disease.

A gas explosion in a coal mine in China’s northeast killed at least 203 miners, the government said today, in the deadliest such disaster reported since communist rule began in 1949.