According to Russian emergency officials an explosion occurred in a Siberian coal mine on Monday, no casualties have been reported yet.

There were 180 workers in Ulyanovskaya mine when the blast occurred, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Veronika Smolskaya said.

She said rescuers were evacuating workers from the mine, which is located in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo region, in a coal-rich part of central Siberia called the Kuzbass.

Kemerovo region officials said the explosion was a methane blast, and that 21 miners had been evacuated unharmed within less than an hour.

The Ulyanovskaya mine opened in 2002 and produces 3 million metric tons of coal a year. Novokuznetsk is about 3,000 kilometers (1,850 miles) east of Moscow.

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