At least 16 people died when a fire broke out inside the Sanjiaosu coal mine in Panzhou City, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, at around 08:10 local time (03:10 GMT) today, local authorities said.

The fire was extinguished but “after a preliminary check, it was found that 16 people are unconscious,” authorities in the city of Panchu, located nearly 3,600 km southwest of Beijing, said in a statement posted on their website.

Initial findings allowed it to be established that “the conveyor belt caught fire,” according to the announcement.

Although safety in the mining sector has improved in China in recent decades, accidents are frequent, usually due to lax enforcement of safety rules, especially in the most rudimentary facilities.

In February, the collapse of an open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia, northern China, killed 53 people.

Dozens of people and vehicles were crushed. For months the authorities had not announced the death toll and only in June they announced that the death toll from the collapse had reached 53.