Latest reports from Chinese press said 10 more miners were trapped in a shaft in the mine near Jingzhong city, in the Shanxi province. Xinhua News Agency reported the miners had little chance of survival because of the high temperatures underground.

AP said 27 miners were working at the time of the explosion, which was most likely triggered by the resumption of electricity after a power flux, CCTV reported.

In the south-west on the country, 12 workers remain trapped in a flooded mine. The miners have been trapped for almost two weeks and it is unclear whether they are still alive.

The accident occurred after workers dug into a nearby adjacent mine that was filled with water. At the time of the flooding, three workers escaped immediately and seven others were rescued soon after, AP reported.

AP said rescuers had built underground passages and drained the mine to try and rescue the workers.

It has been a terrible two weeks for Chinese coal mines with an explosion killing 28 miners last Wednesday, and three days before that a gas blast killed at least 37 miners, with five workers still missing. Both disasters occurred in the country’s Shanxi province.

After this most recent incident, Xinhua reported the Shanxi provincial government has asked all the mines in province, with the exception of five large state-owned mines, to stop operations for a week for safety checks.