At least 16 miners were killed and six injured after a coalmine collapsed in Marwar area of Balochistan's Quetta district on Saturday, DG PDMA Muhammad Tariq said.

One labourer is reportedly still trapped under the rubble of the mine which collapsed due to a gas explosion and efforts are being made to rescue them.

The bodies of 16 miners trapped in the mine were retrieved during the rescue operation, while six labourers were recovered with injuries and shifted to the Civil Hospital in Quetta, DG PDMA told DawnNewsTV.

Deputy Commissioner Quetta Dr Farrukh Atique and other officials from the provincial disaster management authority reached the site of the incident and supervised rescue efforts.

Personnel of Frontier Corps, Levies and Quick Response Force were also on the spot to recover the trapped miners.

Most of the labourers involved in the incident belonged to the same village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Shangla district, officials told Dawn.

According to the Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF), between 100 and 200 labourers die on average in coalmine accidents every year. At least 11 miners died during two such incidents in mines of Darra Adam Khel and Jhelum last month.

Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, leakage or explosion of poisonous gases and coal dust, collapsing of mine stopes or general mechanical errors from improperly used or malfunctioning mining equipment.

With additional reporting by Umar Bacha in Shangla.