<p>Fears were rising meanwhile for five miners still missing.<br /><br />President Viktor Yanukovych announced a day of mourning for Sunday, while Prime Minister Mykola Azarov is to attend a funeral service for victims the same day and meet their relatives.<br /><br />Twenty-four miners died after an explosion yesterday at the Sukhodolskaya-Vostochnaya coal mine in the eastern Lugansk region, the emergency ministry said, revising an earlier toll of 20.<br /><br />Two people are still missing.<br /><br />The toll from a separate accident hours later was also revised, from seven to eight, with three still missing, after a mine headframe collapsed at the Bazhanova pit in the town of Makiyivka in the neighbouring Donetsk region.<br /><br />The twin disasters were the country's worst mining accidents since more than 100 miners died in a mine explosion in 2007.<br /><br />The blast hit the Sukhodolskaya-Vostochnaya mine at around 2:00 am yesterday, in an air passage at a depth of more than 900 metres (2,950 feet), where 28 miners were working at the time, the emergency ministry said.<br /><br />"The provisional explanation is a methane explosion," the regional administration said today.<br /><br />Rescuers have begun clearing gas from an emergency access tunnel into the mine, in order to go down in search of the missing miners, a spokeswoman for the Lugansk regional administration told AFP.<br /><br /></p>
<p>Fears were rising meanwhile for five miners still missing.<br /><br />President Viktor Yanukovych announced a day of mourning for Sunday, while Prime Minister Mykola Azarov is to attend a funeral service for victims the same day and meet their relatives.<br /><br />Twenty-four miners died after an explosion yesterday at the Sukhodolskaya-Vostochnaya coal mine in the eastern Lugansk region, the emergency ministry said, revising an earlier toll of 20.<br /><br />Two people are still missing.<br /><br />The toll from a separate accident hours later was also revised, from seven to eight, with three still missing, after a mine headframe collapsed at the Bazhanova pit in the town of Makiyivka in the neighbouring Donetsk region.<br /><br />The twin disasters were the country's worst mining accidents since more than 100 miners died in a mine explosion in 2007.<br /><br />The blast hit the Sukhodolskaya-Vostochnaya mine at around 2:00 am yesterday, in an air passage at a depth of more than 900 metres (2,950 feet), where 28 miners were working at the time, the emergency ministry said.<br /><br />"The provisional explanation is a methane explosion," the regional administration said today.<br /><br />Rescuers have begun clearing gas from an emergency access tunnel into the mine, in order to go down in search of the missing miners, a spokeswoman for the Lugansk regional administration told AFP.<br /><br /></p>