Four blasts within minutes have rocked the centre of the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, injuring at least 27 people, including nine schoolchildren.

Rescuers battled a raging fire and deadly gases deep in an eastern Ukrainian coal mine today, looking for survivors from a methane gas explosion that killed at least 25 miners.

At least 25 miners were killed in an explosion at a Ukrainian mine, the ITAR-Tass news agency has reported.