Twenty-seven people have been found dead and seven remained trapped after a coal mine blast in north China's Shanxi Province, rescuers said early Saturday.

The explosion occurred in the facility of the Anxin Coal Mining Co. Ltd. in Xiaoyi City at about 11 a.m. Friday, when 58 miners were working underground.

Fifteen of them managed to escape by themselves and another nine were lifted by rescuers.

More than 100 rescuers from Xiaoyi and other areas have been mobilized to search the trapped.

The coal company reported to local government authorities that the blasting of explosives under the main shaft caused the incident.

Shanxi's Communist Party chief Zhang Baoshun and governor Meng Xuenong have ordered all-out efforts to rescue the trapped. Meng has rushed to the site to oversee the rescue operation.

(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2008)