Police on Wednesday identified seven people in charge of the coal mine where there was an explosion the day before in Mianchi county of Central China's Henan province, as the death toll rose to 26, after police found 13 unreported bodies.

Relatives of a miner killed in a gas explosion are overcome by grief on Wednesday in Mianchi county, Henan province. The blast, which killed 26 miners, occurred at 5:40 pm on Tuesday at Juyuan Coal Mine in Mianchi. [Photo from China News Service]

"The seven suspects are now being investigated not only for deliberately underreporting casualties but also because they are responsible for the mine's illegal operation," Chen Mingzhou, a senior official with the county public security bureau, told China Daily.

The blast occurred at 5:40 pm on Tuesday in a sealed-off section of Juyuan Coal Mine in Mianchi, Sanmenxia city, which was recently acquired by a State-owned company. It was undergoing a safety-hazard elimination process at the time of the incident, local authorities said.

Official media reported at about 8 am on Wednesday that the rescue headquarters had said 33 people were underground and 20 had safely resurfaced.

However, police examinations of the mine lamp and work shift records discovered 46 miners were in the shaft when the explosion occurred.

Subsequent searches found nine more bodies underground. Police interrogations of involved parties revealed mine operators had hidden another four bodies, pushing the death toll to 26, the publicity department of the Mianchi government told China Daily at about 11 am on Wednesday.

A Mianchi government publicity official, who only gave his surname, Zhang, said the State-owned Yima Coal Industry Group had acquired the coal mine, and it was later sealed-off. But the previous owners continued illegally operating in the closed-down section and triggered the explosion.

Zhang said the initial death toll was provided by Yima, but the company got the figure from the mine's former owner, who underreported the casualties.

China Central Television reported after the accident that the heads of the coal mine were missing, and no map of the underground structure was available during the rescue.

A senior official with Mianchi work safety bureau said it received the accident report at about 6:55 pm on Tuesday, almost an hour after the explosion, indicating the report had been delayed.

A team including senior provincial Party leaders and relevant authorities has arrived at Mianchi to investigate the cause and responsible parties of the incident.

The mine had an annual production capacity of 150,000 tons.

It is not the first time management of a coal mine in Mianchi county has underreported casualties.

A fire in another coal mine in Mianchi's Tianchi township on Feb 2, 2007, killed 24. The coal mine's owners initially reported only 11 people had been underground, and that two of them had died and five were missing.

Investigators found several government officials had colluded with the mine's owners and shareholders. The case led to the dismissals and legal punishments of the then deputy county mayor, county coal bureau's head and the township leaders.

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