Six miners have been killed in a blast at a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.
They were among eight miners trapped about 1,000 feet underground when methane gas exploded at the coal field in Marwar in the province of Balochistan, the officials said.
“Six bodies have been retrieved by the rescue team from the affected mine this morning,” a senior official of the Directorate of Mines said.
"(The) mine has been closed and an inquiry has been ordered by the Chief Inspector of Mines into the incident."
In the past year, 102 coal miners have been killed in Balochistan in 72 different incidents, Sultan Muhammad Lala, president of the Balochistan Coal Mines Workers Federation, told Reuters.
Lala said the government and mine owners were not ensuring safe working conditions at the sites.
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Israel's military carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering.
Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain, and the United States.