15 killed in China coal mine explosion

The official said the blast occurred at the dormitory area. It left 15 workers dead and 20 others injured.

The rescue work was going on at the blast site and the cause of the explosion was under investigation,the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Hundreds of people die every year in mine accidents in energy-hungry China due to lack of proper implementation of safety measures.

Meanwhile,the death toll in Friday’s explosion at a taxation office in Changsha city,the capital of central China’s Hunan Province,has risen to four.

Nineteen people were also injured in the incident,local police said.

The explosion went off on the third floor of a branch of Furong District’s taxation office on Hengda Road near a downtown residential block,according to a statement from the city’s police.

Initial investigations showed that the explosion was a planned attack,said police,which sealed off the building and blocked nearby roads.

All the workers in the building had already been evacuated before the police came. Window panes in the third floor were all shattered and large blood stains could been seen on the stairs.

The injured had been sent to the hospital.

In another incident in northeast China’s Jilin province,one person was killed and 20 others were injured on Friday in a series of explosions in a barber’s shop in provincial capital Changchun.

Four fire fighters were among the injured in the explosions,according to a statement from the municipal government.

Witnesses said four explosions hit the shop.

Fire fighters and workers from a local gas supply company were working at the site.

Pieces of the shattered window panes could be seen 40 metres away from the site of explosions.