The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union represents coal miners in the country, and its national secretary Andrew Little only heard about the accident a short time ago today.

The Mine Rescue Trust Association looks after emergency responses and ironically, Little told ILN he understood “they were actually having an exercise at the mine today”

While rescue efforts are just underway, Little had few other details at this early stage.

But he does know that gas is an issue with a lot of West Coast mines.

“Some are more gassy than others, it’s a pretty big risk on a lot of those seams on the west coast,” he said.

A new underground coal mine, Pike made its first export shipment of coking coal in February.

Last month Pike cut its production forecast from 620,000 tonnes of saleable coking coal to 320,000-360,000t for this financial year, almost three weeks after long-time chief executive officer and managing director Gordon Ward left the company.

The production cuts came as development of the panels for hydro-mining had fallen short of previous expectations.

Pike is unable to provide any comments on the situation at this stage.

Pike shares are in a trading halt.