44 miners have been killed in a gas explosion in a coal mine in northeastern China.
The 44 were working at an unlicensed mine in Dingsheng in Heilongjiang province, located some 1,500 km northeast of the capital Beijing.
This latest accident brings the number of miners killed in Chinese mine accidents in the past month to 240.
A top national safety official vowed to crack down on owners of unsafe and illegal mines.
Zhao Tiechui, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety Supervision, was quoted as blaming shoddy safety practices for the latest spate of accidents.
According to official statistics China's mining industry claimed more than 7,000 lives last year, about 5,500 of which were in coal mines.
The National People's Congress passed China's first work safety codes on June 29 aimed at curtailing work-related disasters, including mining mishaps.
But past efforts to regulate mines, many of which are tiny and illegal, have proved less than successful.
Thousands have been ordered closed, but many have reopened under the protection of local governments which rely on them for tax revenues.
