14 trapped after Mexico mine blast

TORREON—Fourteen miners were trapped and at least one was hurt after a gas explosion shook a coal mine in Coahuila state, near the US border in northern Mexico, local authorities said Tuesday.

“There are 14 people trapped and one person hurt his arm and managed to get out” from the mine near the town of Sabinas, Segismundo Doguin, a state civil protection official, told AFP.

State police officer Guillermo Flores confirmed the figure and said that an injured man had had his arm amputated to escape.

Rescue workers were still unable to contact the miners early afternoon, several hours after the blast which was apparently caused by methane gas, Doguin said.

The miners were trapped some 50 meters (yards) underground, he added.

Sabinas mayor Jesus Maria Montemayor told Foro TV that the area, some 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the US border, had been cordoned off, and that the injured miner had been evacuated to the state capital of Saltillo.

A 2006 explosion in the Pasta de Conchos mine, near Sabinas, killed 65 miners most of whose bodies have still not been recovered.