According to Russian officials, a massive explosion in a Siberian coal mine killed 52 miners and rescuers some 250 meters deep.

Rescuers discovered 14 dead hours after a methane gas explosion and fire flooded the mine with hazardous gases yesterday, but were forced to call off the search for 38 others due to a build-up of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire.
A total of 239 individuals had been rescued.

According to emergency officials quoted by the state news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti, there was little hope of recovering any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Kemerovo region of southern Siberia.

According to the Interfax news agency, a representative of the regional administration estimated the dead toll from Thursday's accident at 52, citing carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause.

It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region.