AN EXPLOSION at a coalmine in eastern Iran killed at least 34 workers and injured 17, officials said today, making it one of the worst mining disasters in the country’s history.

The blast struck a mine in Tabas, 335 miles south-east of the capital Tehran, on Saturday night.

Today, weeping miners stood alongside mine wagons that brought up the bodies of their colleagues, covered in coal dust.

Some 70 people had been working at the time of the blast. State TV later said that 17 were believed to be trapped at a depth of 650 feet in a 2,300-foot tunnel, but figures varied, with some reports suggesting that the death toll was higher.

Provincial emergency official Mohammad Ali Akhoundi said that the number of workers killed had reached at least 34 as rescue efforts continued.

Authorities blamed the blast on a leak of methane gas.

It wasn’t immediately clear what safety procedures had been put in place by Mandanjoo, the company that operated the Tabas Parvadeh 5 mine.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he had ordered that every effort be made to rescue those trapped and aid their families.

According to a statement from his office, he said that an investigation into the explosion had begun and that he had “requested measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents by improving work standards in the country’s mines.”

Iran’s mining industry has a history of disasters, with lax safety enforcement and inadequate emergency services in mining areas often blamed for the fatalities.

 In 2017, an explosion in a coalmine killed at least 42 people. When then president Hassan Rouhani visited the site in the northern province of Golestan, angry miners besieged his armoured car, kicking and beating it in a rage.