Bodies of eleven coal miners recovered from southwestern Pakistan after last week's incident

Rescuers recovered the bodies of 11 coal miners, killed in a methane gas explosion last week that caused a coal mine to collapse in southwestern Pakistan, officials said Monday, the Associated Press reported.

Efforts are still underway to locate a 12th miner who remains missing.

The incident occurred on January 9 in the Singidi area of Balochistan province, provincial mines inspector Abdul Ghani told AFP on the day.

All 12 miners were feared dead after the explosion, which trapped the workers in the private coal mine.

Local rescue teams initially began searching for the miners before being joined by additional crews from Quetta, the provincial capital. The hazardous conditions made the operation both dangerous and time-consuming, Ghani said.

In a separate incident reported a day earlier, two more miners lost their lives when another coal mine collapsed in Harnai, another district in Balochistan.

The latest accidents have highlighted the perilous working conditions and lack of safety standards in Pakistan's mining industry, where fatal incidents are common.

Adding to the challenges in the region, Pakistani security forces last week rescued eight of 16 miners who had been kidnapped by local militants in the country’s restive northwest. A search operation for the remaining abducted miners is ongoing.