Thirteen miners died and ten were injured after a methane gas explosion in a mine in the east of the Czech Republic.
"In total we have 13 dead miners, 11 Poles and two Czechs," said a spokesman for the OKD mining company.
The accident occurred in the CSM mine in the town of Karvina, about 300 km east of Prague, yesterday afternoon.
"The explosion at the CSM mine is a huge tragedy," tweeted Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who will visit the site this morning together with his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki.
The OKD spokesman said that the dead coal miners were from the Alpex mining company, based in Poland.
“We are a big family, it is a terrible tragedy,” a Czech miner told Polar TV.
Czech media said the accident occurred at a depth of 880 meters and the fire had not yet been extinguished.
OKD, which manages the mine, is controlled by the Czech state and plans to extract at least five million tons of coal this year.
