DONETSK, Nov. 18 – At least 72 coal miners were killed and dozens were missing Sunday after a powerful methane gas blast ripped through a coal mine in Donetsk region, emergency ministry officials said.

An effort was underway to rescue 28 coal miners that are believed to have been trapped at the depth of more than 1,000 meters at Zasyadko coal mine, officials said.

The accident is the worst coal mining disaster in Ukraine since an explosion at Barakova coal mine in Luhansk region killed 81 miners in March 2000.

The accident also highlights the poor safety record at Ukrainian coal mines, which are believed to be some of the world’s most dangerous, due in part to the depth of coal extraction - often exceeding 1,000 meters - and to the abundance of methane gas that comes with the coal deposits in the area.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who visited the site of the accident, underscored the dangers of coal extraction in Ukraine. "This accident has proven once again that a human is powerless before nature," Yanukovych said.

Yanukovych said that safety specialists that have examined the site found nothing wrong as far as the implementation of safety requirements, but the investigation has been continuing.

The explosion occurred around 3 a.m. Sunday 1,078 meters deep inside the Zasyadko mine, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Some 367 coal miners have been evacuated, while 28 have been hospitalized, the ministry said.

One of the evacuated coal miners, Vitaliy Kvitkovsky, said it was extremely difficult to leave the site of the accident due to rapidly rising heat and nearly zero visibility following the explosion.

"The temperature increased sharply and there was so much dust that I couldn't see anything," Kvitkovsky said in comments aired by Channel 5 television. "So I was moving by touch over dead bodies along the rail track."

Local authorities declared three days of mourning for the dead miners.

Last year, an explosion at the mine killed 13 workers. In 2002, an explosion killed 20 and 54 died in a similar explosion in 2001. In May 1999, 50 miners were killed in a methane and coal dust blast there.

Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, more than 4,700 miners in Ukraine have been killed.

Ukraine produces about 80 million metric tons of coal annually, but the government has been seeking to increase the output to 100 million tons within years to reduce the country’s dependence on Russian natural gas imports.(nr/ez)