MAKIYIVKA, Aug. 24 – Eight miners were killed and 11 injured in an explosion in a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, the latest tragedy to hit the country's troubled mining industry, AFP reported Monday.

The suspected methane gas blast took place Sunday at a mine in Makiyivka, a city in Ukraine's coal-rich Donetsk region.

"The accident occurred 110 meters (about 360 feet) underground, where 141 miners were located at the time," Maryna Nikitina, a spokesman for the industrial oversight agency, told reporters.