A methane blast ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine early Sunday, killing at least 63 miners in the ex-Soviet nation's worst mining accident in years, emergency officials said. More than 360 miners were rescued but 37 others remained trapped inside the mine — one of Ukraine's largest and deepest — with a raging fire hampering efforts to save them, officials said.
The explosion occurred around 3 a.m. more than 3,300 feet deep inside the Zasyadko mine in the regional capital Donetsk, the heart of the country's coal mining industry, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Authorities evacuated 367 miners. Twenty-eight were hospitalized, the ministry said.
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