Nine rescuers were poisoned by carbon monoxide while down in a pit trying to save four colleagues who were trapped following a coal mine gas blast in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Tuesday.

The gas explosion occurred on Tuesday afternoon at Tengda Coal Mine of Yiliang County, in the city of Zhaotong. The mine managers immediately sent 13 employees down the pit for rescue work.

The rescuers were poisoned by gas and hospitalized on Tuesday night, said Liu Zhengxiang, a publicity official in Yiliang County.

He said their lives were not at risk.

The local government had sent a team of professional rescuers to search for the trapped miners, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2008)