At least four miners died and 28 were injured in an explosion in a coal mine in southern Chile on Monday, and the death toll could rise, government officials and local media said, according to Reuters. The blast occurred at 7:30 a.m. (1130 GMT) in the Victoria coal mine near the Pacific coast town of Lebu, some 420 miles (670 km) south of the capital. Some of the injured miners were hospitalized with serious burns to their breathing passages, President Ricardo Lagos told reporters. "That makes us fear that the number of fatalities could increase," Lagos said. Nestor Matamala, governor of the Arauco region where the mine is located, told Chile's National Television that the mine had been evacuated after the explosion. --SP 2259 Local Time 1959 GMT
