HANOI--Seven Vietnamese women died and three more were injured in a rockfall at a stone quarry in the latest of a string of such accidents over the past month, officials said Sunday.

"Two women aged 29 and 35 were killed immediately and five others died on the way to the hospital," said Ho Phuc Hop, head of the Quynh Luu district people's committee in central Nghe An province after Saturday's accident.

"The accident occurred when more than 20 women were working at this private quarry. It happened because of a lack of work-safety measures," he told AFP.

Hop said the two quarry owners had disappeared and were being hunted by police, while authorities had immediately closed down the operation.

Eighteen workers died in a rockslide in Nghe An province on December 15.

Seven laborers, six of them women, were killed in a rockfall on December 27 in a quarry in neighboring Ha Tinh province, and three workers died in a quarry collapse in central Phu Yen province on January 6.

The communist country's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung late last year ordered Vietnam's quarries to tighten up safety standards after lax regulations were found to have caused the deadly accidents.