A seriously injured miner died Sunday, bringing the death toll in a Serbian coal mine methane blast Thursday to 39, Russian news agencies said.

The explosion hit the Yubileinaya mine in the Kemerovo Region at 7:40 a.m. Moscow time (0340 GMT) on Thursday, when 217 miners were working underground with up to 40 near the blast center.

Of the 194 workers and 23 specialists of the mine's monitoring service working underground, 179 were rescued, including the seven injured.

Eduard Lyakh, 33, was brought from the mine on Thursday evening when all thought that there were no more people alive underground. Doctors diagnosed a fracture of the backbone and a cerebral contusion, the Itar-Tass news agency said.

Lyakh was in coma and died at the Research Center for the Protection of Miners' Health. The other six injured miners are still in hospitals.

Local prosecutors said they have opened an inquiry into the possibility of safety rule breaching at the mine.

The Yubileinaya mine, jointly owned by Russia's largest underground mining company, the Yuzhkuzbassugol Company, and the second biggest steelmaker Evraz Group, is located in the city of Novokuznetsk.

Another deadly methane explosion killed 110 miners at the Ulyanovskaya mine, which also belongs to the Yuzhkuzbassugol company, on March 19.

Results of investigation indicated that the March explosion was caused by an unauthorized shutdown of methane sensors in the mine, which was seen as an attempt to increase production by ignoring the reality of methane existing underground.

Source: Xinhua