AFP - At least four miners were killed and nine reported missing Tuesday after a coal mining accident in eastern Ukraine, a government official said, as relatives kept a tearful vigil at the mine.
  
"Four bodies have been found. The search for the nine missing goes on," Ria-Novosti news agency quoted Ukrainian Deputy Mining Industry Minister Yuri Griadushchyi as telling Kanal 5 television.
  
Out of 51 miners working in the mine at the time of the accident, 38 have been able to escape to the surface, he said.
  
The accident early Monday at the Skochinsky mine in Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine, was not caused by an explosion but apparently happened after a discharge of gas three times above the accepted safety norm 1,300 metres (4,265 feet) underground.
  
Work using explosives had been under way in the mine's shafts just hours before the disaster, Interfax news agency reported.
  
After the accident all mining work was suspended, said Marina Nikitina, a spokeswoman for the State Committee on Workers' Safety.
  
"Work is under way to ventilate the shafts and reduce the presence of methane," the mine's director Valeri Miminoshvili told reporters.
  
"I hope we will have managed to clear the debris and ventilate the mine in 24 to 36 hours," he added.
  
About 30 relatives of the missing miners sat outside the entrance waiting for news of their loved ones, some of them reduced to tears.
  
Some had rushed to the scene dressed as they were when the news reached them: in slippers and dressing gowns. One young girl turned up barefoot.
  
"My husband, Sasha, is down there. It's only been a week since he was hired at Skochinsky," said Lina, a 24-year-old who was at the scene with her mother-in-law.
  
"We were so happy, it is a solid mine where people are well paid," she added.
  
"We don't know what to think, they should tell us something at least. I can't even cry because I don't want to upset her," she added quietly, glancing across at her mother-in-law.
  
"Everything will be okay, don't you worry," she told her.
  
Ukraine's coal mines are considered among the most dangerous in the world. Many of them are poorly financed and employ outdated Soviet-era equipment.
  
The country's coal industry, concentrated in the east of the country, has been rocked with repeated deadly accidents in recent years.
  
Most of the mining disasters have been blamed on explosions caused by the build-up of methane gas.
  
Monday's accident came exactly one year after a blast at the Karl Marx mine in Yenakiyevo, 60 kilometres (40 miles) east of Donetsk, killed 12 miners and sparked a massive effort to save 24 more trapped deep underground.
  
In November 2007 a gas explosion at the Zasiadko mine killed 101 miners in the worst-ever accident of its kind in this former Soviet republic.
  
The state-run Skochinsky mine itself is considered one of the most hazardous work environments in Ukraine due to the high levels of methane in the shafts, which stretch underground for several hundred kilometres.
  
The mine opened in 1975 and employs between 3,000 and 4,000 people. In the mine's worst accident, 63 miners died and 51 were injured after a gas leak in April 2004.