Rescuers rush to reach 14 trapped in Mexico mine

Rescue workers raced against the clock Tuesday to reach 14 miners trapped deep underground in a north Mexico coal mine, after a suspected gas explosion that has already left at least one miner injured.

The condition of the 14 missing was unclear mid-afternoon, some eight hours after the blast in the mine in Coahuila state, near the US border.

"There are 14 people trapped and one person hurt his arm and managed to get out" from the mine near the town of Sabinas, Segismundo Doguin, a state civil protection official said.

State police officer Guillermo Flores confirmed the figure and said that an injured man had his arm amputated in order to escape.

Doguin said that the blast was apparently caused by methane gas, and that the miners were trapped some 50 meters (yards) underground.

Anxious families started to gather around the mine opening in the afternoon as Secretary of Labor Javier Lozano also headed to the scene.

"The families are very desperate. We understand them, but it's quite dangerous to enter the mine due to levels of methane present," said Sabinas mayor Jesus Maria Montemayor.

Civil protection workers, miners and soldiers were working together to try to locate the group trapped inside the mine in the same area where 65 miners died in a similar accident in 2006.

The area around the mine, some 80 miles (130 kilometres) from the US border, was cordoned off, and the injured miner had been evacuated to the state capital of Saltillo, Montemayor said.

President Felipe Calderon said he had ordered "everything in our power to be done to rescue" the miners.

"We'll pray that they're alive," Calderon said during a visit to central Mexico.

A 2006 explosion in the Pasta de Conchos mine, near Sabinas, killed 65 miners. Most of those bodies have still not been recovered.

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