Four killed, 50 trapped under rocks in a coal mine in China

Four miners were killed and seven others pulled out alive while rescuers today made frantic efforts to save 50 others trapped under the rubble in central China's Henan province after it was hit by an earthquake.

Crowds cheered when over 200 rescuers frantically working to rescue the trapped miners pulled out seven of them alive.

Six of them had sustained minor injuries, and the other one had been seriously injured when rescuers located them 510 meters underground Friday morning, state run Xinhua reported.

The accident happened yesterday evening in the Qianqiu Coal Mine in the city of Sanmenxia, a while after a 2.9-magnitude earthquake hit the city of Sanmenxia city following which heap of rocks came tumbling down, according to rescuers.

A total of 75 miners were working in the shaft at the time of the accident, of whom 14 managed to escape, the administration said.

The shaft is about 760-meters deep and the rock burst blocked off the shaft at a depth of about 480 meters, which has hampered ongoing rescue efforts, they said, according to the rescue headquarters.

The coal mine, with an annual production capacity of 2.1 million tonnes, belongs to Yima Coal Group, a major tate-owned coal enterprise in Henan.