China coal mine warehouse blast kills at least 18

Police are searching for three shareholders of the mine in Hunan Province's Yongxing County in connection with Friday's explosion. The cause of the blast is still under investigation, Xinhua quoted the head of the county government as saying.

China's mining industry is the world's most dangerous. Gas blasts, flooding and other accidents killed 3,786 coal miners in 2007, as companies often flouted safety regulations in the rush to feed the booming economy, although the industry's death toll fell to 2,690 in the first 10 months of 2008 after thousands of small, unsafe mines were closed.

(Reporting by Edmund Klamann; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)