The death toll in a gas blast in a colliery in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region rose to 81 Wednesday but two miners remained missing, government officials said.

Rescuers have found the bodies of the 81 victims as of 11:00 a.m. Wednesday and are searching for the two who are still trapped underground after the blast happened in the Shenlong Mine of Fukang County, 62 km away from the regional capital of Urumqi, early Monday morning.

Only four out of the 87 people working underground when the accident took place survived.

China's work safety watchdog has blamed the coal mine blast on a number of safety loopholes, including overproduction, lack of a work safety license and ill-management.

Li Yizhong, director of the State Administration for Work Safety, said that overproduction had led to an extremely high gas density in the colliery shaft, and the management staff failed to take effective measures to prevent casualties after finding the gas density problem.

Li also criticized the colliery management for sending an exceedingly large number of miners underground in order to increase production.

Source: Xinhua