At least fourteen people were killed on Friday, in an explosion at a coal mine in Henan Province, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The blast, sparked by a gas leak, occurred at about 1:00 AM at the No 4 mine owned by Pingyu Coal and Power Co in Yuzhou, Henan, the report said.

Eleven men remain trapped in the mine, but rescuers said they have made contact with two of them.

"The two miners contacted rescuers via a fixed telephone in the mine," Li Shuxin, the firm's chief engineer said.

"They are not in any immediate danger, as they have supplies of water and air, and are just waiting to be rescued," he said.

The location and condition of the other missing men is as yet unknown, the rescue headquarters said.

A 40-strong team is involved in the rescue effort.

However, Shanghai-based news website Xinmin.cn quoted local press officials as saying the gas level in the mine is still too high for rescue workers to enter.

Most of the men killed were from Yuzhou, it said.

Meanwhile, in Shenmu County, Shaanxi Province, rescue teams on Friday were continuing to search for nine men trapped in a coal mine after a cave in on Thursday afternoon.

The incident happened at the Zhaojialiang mine at about 3:30 PM when 38 miners were working underground. Twenty-nine managed to escape, the Shenmu County government said.

A government official surnamed Li told China Daily that three teams had entered the mine and restored the ventilation, drainage and communication systems, and the rescue effort was proceeding in an orderly fashion.

In Sichuan province on Friday, five people were killed in the city of Ya'an, after a mudflow triggered by heavy rain on Thursday night buried the car they were in, Xinhua reported.

The incident happened at about 9:30 PM, it said.

The five victims were all employees of Sinohydro Bureau 5, a hydropower development company based in the provincial capital Chengdu.

Among them was Zhu Shuzhen, the company's chief engineer, who was leading the group to inspect a construction site.

City authorities launched a rescue effort and succeeded in pulling the car from the mud, but it was too late to save the occupants, a government spokesman said.

Also on Friday, at least 11 residents of a village in Majiazhuang, Shanxi Province, were buried in their homes following a landslide in the early hours of the morning.

The exact number of people trapped has yet to be established, but 11 have so far been identified, a spokesman for the local government said.

(China Daily August 2, 2008)