The gas blast occurred just after midnight at a mine in Linfen city, a coal-rich area in Shanxi province, the State Administration of Mine Safety said, in the latest tragedy to hit China's notoriously unsafe mining industry.

By late Thursday evening, 70 bodies had been retrieved and at least 26 other workers remained trapped in the mine shaft, the government-run Xinhua news agency said, citing local rescue headquarters.

Fifteen people had either been rescued or managed to escape themselves, Xinhua reported.

The mine safety administration had earlier in the day reported that at least 40 people had been killed and 74 had been trapped at the Ruizhiyuan mine.

A spokeswoman for the administration, An Yuanjie, told AFP that some of the people trapped or killed were rescue workers who had rushed into the mine, despite concerns that the gas build-up in the shaft remained dangerously high.

"After the accident occurred, the mine sent in a rescue team of 32 people, but soon after they were trapped as well," she said. It was not clear on Thursday evening how many of the dead or trapped were rescue workers.

An said she was unable to give any reason for the initial blast or say how the rescuers also became trapped in the mine.

However the state-run press said the explosion was likely a result of the mine operators illegally running the mine at over-capacity.

China National Radio's evening broadcast said the cause was linked to "over-production" at the mine, which had a licence to produce 210,000 tonnes of coal a year.

Xinhua also said the mine had been operating in an unauthorised area, adding that the colliery's chief and another senior official had been arrested, while the company's bank accounts had been frozen.

The rescue headquarters further accused the mine's managers of not reporting the accident immediately as they wanted to conduct rescue work themselves, according to Xinhua.

"(This) magnified the number of casualties," Xinhua said.

The tragedy appeared to follow a familiar pattern in China's coal mines, where safety standards are often ignored in the quest for profits and the drive to meet the nation's booming energy demands.

The central government has previously spoken out against endemic corruption in the industry, with collusion between local government officials and businessmen a particular concern.

More than 4,700 coal miners died in China last year, according to official figures -- a fatality rate of nearly 13 a day.

Independent labour groups put the real toll at closer to 20,000 annually, saying many accidents are covered up.

One local farmer said residents were being kept away from the mine.

"The mine is locked down by all kinds of departments, including the police. No-one can get near," said the farmer, who refused to identify himself after being contacted by AFP by phone.

Meanwhile, Xinhua reported that at least 11 workers were missing after the entrance to an illegal iron and gold mine well collapsed in neighbouring Hebei province on Monday.

Six miners were killed at yet another mine cave-in in Hebei on Tuesday, Xinhua said in another report.

In the worst reported coal accident this year, 172 miners were killed in August when their mine in eastern China's Shandong province flooded after a nearby river burst its banks following heavy downpours.

Another nine died in a nearby mine in the same circumstances.

Those tragedies were the worst reported coal mining disasters in China since an explosion at a colliery in the northeastern Liaoning province in 2005 claimed 214 lives.

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