Two local officials were sacked after a coal mine gas explosion left 35 dead and 44 trapped underground in central China's Henan Province Tuesday.

Qi Tongyan, deputy head of Xinhua District, Pingdingshan City and Zhang Xizhi, a coal industry administration official of the city, were dismissed from their posts Tuesday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the gas blast, which took place around 1:00 AM in the Xinhua No.4 pit.

A total of 93 people were working in the pit when the accident happened, 14 of whom managed to escape, said a spokesman with the Henan Provincial Bureau of Work Safety. Among the survivors, four were in critical condition.

City authorities have sent five teams of 70 rescuers to take part in the search and rescue operation.

The accident has caught the attention of top leadership, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang arrived in Pingdingshan with a government delegation at 1:10 PM Tuesday.

Zhang urged that no efforts be spared to rescue the buried miners, save the injured and do well the aftercare work, in accordance with the instructions of Hu and Wen.

Luo Lin, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, has also led a team to Pingdingshan to oversee rescue work and investigate the accident.

Ambulances, police wagons and engineering vehicles packed the colliery's compound Tuesday morning.

"The first group of rescuers arrived at 2:00 AM and began to restore the underground ventilation system," said Zhang Jufeng, an official in charge of the city's coal mine industry bureau.

By 11:00 AM ventilation in most shafts had been restored, he said.

A preliminary investigation showed illegal mining was to blame for the accident.

The township-run colliery, which produces 150,000 tonnes of coal annually, was undergoing an overhaul and had not been allowed to resume production by the city government, said a spokesman with the Pingdingshan city committee of the Communist Party of China.

The Xinhua District government had sent three officials to the mine for supervision. Only five miners were allowed to go underground to carry out ventilation and drainage work. However, 93 people were sent underground by the coal mine for illegal mining. The procuratorate said it would prosecute the three supervisors.

Local authorities have frozen the colliery's bank account and its owners Li Xinjun, Hou Min and Deng Qun have been held in criminal custody.

The Henan provincial government has ordered an immediate safety overhaul of all coal mines. Governments at city and county levels are to be held responsible for safety at all pits in their jurisdictions, said a circular issued by the province's government Tuesday.

The city government of Pingdingshan has ordered all of the city's 157 coal mines to suspend production for safety overhaul.

Coal mine disasters took 1,699 lives in Henan Province in the first eight months of this year, down 22 percent from the same period of last year, the provincial work safety bureau said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2009)