Fifteen miners were rescued and one was still missing after a coal mine accident in Fugu county in Yulin, a city in Northwest China's Shaanxi province.

The miners were trapped after a mine roof collapsed.

The rescued miners were sent to a local hospital and were in stable condition, the county’s information office said on Friday afternoon.

Rescuers were still searching for the trapped miner.

Coal miner Wang Qiming talks to his father on the phone on Friday, while his wife comforts him, after he was rescued in Fugu, Shaanxi province. Wang and 14 of his colleagues were rescued after a roof collapsed at the mine while 96 miners were working underground. One miner is still missing. [Photo / Xinhua]

The accident happened at 1:50 pm on Thursday when 96 miners were working underground. Eighty workers managed to escape uninjured after the accident, but 16 were trapped underground, according to the county’s information department of the Chinese Communist Party Committee.

According to a miner surnamed Yan, who was working underground when the accident happened, the roof collapse occurred some 4,000 meters from the mine’s pithead.

After the accident, provincial and Yulin city officials went to the mine to organize the rescue operations.

Fu Jianhua, director of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety and deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety, also traveled to the accident spot from Beijing.

Fu urged emergency workers to do their best during the rescue operations. The director also asked local officials to find out what caused the accident and punish those responsible.

The mine, known as Ruifeng Coal Mine and located in the county’s Xiaochanghan village, belongs to a company that owns three coal mines with an annual output of 1.5 million tons. The mine has a mining license and a business license, but is lacking a safety license or a coal-production license from the relevant government departments.

The county’s information office said that the accident was likely caused by illegal mining as the mine is lacking the appropriate licenses.

The mine owners were asked by police to not leave the area while the rescue operations are under way.

Contact the writers at malie@chinadaily.com.cn and luhongyan@chinadaily.com.cn