Mine blast kills 43 in Kazakhstan-Interfax

ALMATY/MOSCOW, Sep 20 (Reuters) Forty-three people were killed today in an explosion at a mine in Kazakhstan belonging to Mittal Steel , Interfax news agency said.

A spokesman contacted by Reuters at the Emergencies Ministry in the town of Karaganda said: ''There was an accident in the mine.

There are casualties. A rescue operation is under way.'' ''It has definitely been established that they all died because there was a methane gas explosion,'' a spokesman at the mine said, quoted by Interfax.

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