PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) – A gas explosion Sunday in a northern Mexico coal mine trapped at least 66 miners below ground with a limited supply of oxygen, government and company officials said.

Twelve miners were rescued and were being treated in a local hospital with burns and broken bones.

The trapped miners were in extreme danger, said Ruben Escudero Chavez, director of the mine owners Grupo Industrial Minera Mexico, a subsidiary of mining giant Grupo Mexico.

Escudero said 66 miners were still underground, but Consuelo Aguilar, a spokeswoman for the National Miners Union, said 69 miners were trapped.

The explosion occurred before dawn at the mine near the town of Sabinas, 85 miles southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas, on the Mexico-U.S. border, Escudero said.

The mine is about 985 feet below ground, he said.

Daniel Romo, a spokesman for Coahuila state’s emergency services, said the injured miners were being treated for burns and broken bones.

“Their lives are not in danger,” he said.

Romo said authorities did not know how long it would take to reach the trapped miners. It was not immediately clear whether the mine had airtight chambers, such as those that saved 72 potash miners trapped last month after fire broke out in a Canadian mine.

Coahuila’s governor, Mexican soldiers and state police arrived to help in the rescue.

Union spokeswoman Aguilar said there has been concern over safety conditions in Grupo Mexico mines.

“We have pressured for better safety conditions as well as for better pay at the mines,” she said.

She said that investigation was needed to determine the exact cause of the accident and the responsibility of any company officials.

Union officials were working at the scene to assist in the rescue, she said.

As well as mining coal, Grupo Mexico is the world’s third-largest copper producer, with operations in Mexico, Peru and the United States.

There have been various fatal mining accidents in Coahuila. The worst was 1969 when more than 153 miners were killed in a pit at the village of Barroteran. In 2001, another 12 people died in an accident at a mine near Barroteran.

Last month, 14 miners died in two separate accidents at mines in West Virginia, in the United States. Two men died in a fire Jan. 21 at a mine in Melville, nearly three weeks after 12 men died after an explosion near Tallmansville.

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