An explosion in a coal mine in Iran has killed scores of miners. Rescue workers recovered 41 bodies from a coal mine in northern Iran after an explosion caused a tunnel to collapse on Wednesday May 3. At least 41 
miners have lost their lives and scores of others were injured in the blast. The blast occurred in the Zemestanyurt mine, about 14 km outside the town of Azadshahr in Golestan a province in northern Iran. According to the government authorities all miners trapped in the blast have lost their lives and the death toll can be higher. Miners’ relatives and people are angry that the employer and authorities were already informed about the dangerous situation in the mine but did not do anything to prevent the disaster. “Even the day before the blast we smelled the gas and informed the managers but they didn’t take it seriously” said Reza Mahmoodi Parsian one of the miners who was lucky to not being in the tunnel when the explosion took place.
The rescue operation was going slowly as tunnels were filled with poisonous gases and miners were stuck at the far end of a 1,800-meter shaft in a mine that is around two kilometres long.Initial reports put the number of those trapped in the mine at 80, but that figure was later reduced significantly. This is not the first disaster to strike Iran’s mining industry