An explosion at a recently closed coalmine in Henan Province killed at least eight people and injured 36 others Thursday.

Rescue workers take a victim out of a collapsed building at Fenghuangling Coal Mine on July 8, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]

The blast was reported at about 5:30 am at Fenghuangling Coalmine in Zhanhe district in the resource-rich city of Pingdingshan, a city government official said.

Half of a two-story building on the surface collapsed. The 36 injured people, including two with severe injuries, were being treated at a local hospital.

The blast left a hole that is 10 meters deep and more than 10 meters wide. Windows within 50 meters were shattered and the roof of a warehouse was blown off.

The blast site is about 30 meters from the entrance of a coal shaft.

Three of the dead were security guards at the mine, said a spokesman with the rescue headquarters.

The others had not been identified yet.

Fifteen of the injured people were nearby residents. The rest were maintenance and security staff.

The mine had its electricity switched off on June 21. The mine was not operating when the explosion happened, said a spokesman with the rescue headquarters.

On June 21, another coal mine explosion in the same city claimed 49 lives.

Authorities blamed illegal operation and storage of explosives for the June accident.

The latest accident occurred one day after the Stated Council introduced a new measure to speed up security at coalmines.

Coalmines and other mines must arrange mine officials to go underground for inspection on a regular base. The officials must stay underground as long as the miners work underground, it said.

However, no details about how to enforce the new rule are available.

The unusual measure aims to forge a concrete bond between mine officials and miners, urging officials to treasure miners' lives just like treasuring their own lives and to detect and get rid of safety hazards in time, the Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday, adding that detailed regula-tions concerning how to penalize violators are needed urgently to ensure an efficient implementation.

The coalmine safety issue in China remains grim despite improvement, Huang Yi, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

The death toll in the industry dropped from 7,000 in 2003 to 2,631 in 2009 while the coal production increased from 1.3 billion tons to 3 billion tons during the period. The death toll for every 1 million tons of coal production dropped from 4.97 to 0.86, according to government statistics.