QITAIHE, China (AFP) – An explosion at a coal mine in remote northeastern China killed 134 workers and left another 15 trapped underground, state media said yesterday, amid frantic rescue efforts to find survivors.

A total of 221 miners were underground when the blast and cave-in occurred about 9:40 pm (1340 GMT) Sunday at the state-run Dongfeng coal mine, near Qitaihe city in Heilongjiang province, not far from the Russian border.

However, after a day of intense rescue efforts, 72 survivors had been pulled from the rubble, said the semi-official China News Service.

The official Xinhua news agency, which gave the same casualty toll, said 38 of the survivors are being treated in hospital.

Officials at the mine refused to detail the situation or the death toll, but video on China Central Television showed gaping holes in numerous places at the mine site where explosions had ripped through the earth.

“It’s all the management’s fault,” a woman surnamed Ge, whose nephew and brother-in-law were among the missing, told AFP outside the gates of the mine.

“They knew all along that there were safety problems but they wouldn’t do anything about it.”

The accident came as the government said Monday all the 18 miners trapped in a flooded coal mine in northern Hebei province since Thursday last week had been confirmed dead.

The government has this year been trying to step up safety measures for the nation’s coal mines, closing down more than 9,000 illegal operations and suspending another 12,990, according to state press reports.

China’s mines are regarded as the world’s most dangerous and the problem has worsened in recent years as demand for coal has escalated to help fuel rapid economic growth.

China relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and the government said early this month it intended to increase domestic coal production from 2.1 billion tons to 2.4 billion tons over the next five years.

More than 6,000 miners died in accidents in China last year, according to previously released government figures. Independent estimates say the real figure could be as high as 20,000.