Eighteen people were reportedly underground at Guizhou Panjiang’s Jinjia mine at the time of the Friday afternoon gas blast.

Official state media outlet Xinhua said about 300 rescuers with the help of a hydraulic mucker were working around the clock to look for the missing miners.

The incident echoes a similar explosion which killed 23 people at Guizhou Panjiang’s Xiangshui mine in the same province last November.

The state-owned Jinjia mine has an annual production capacity of 1.8 million tonnes of coal.

Xinhua noted that the Guizhou provincial work safety administration had already ordered an overhaul of industrial work safety in the area before the accident.

An investigative team has been assembled to analyse the exact cause of the blast.