Makrana, a small town in Rajasthan, is best known for the pristine white marble that went into the construction of that great monument of love, the Taj Mahal. However, it now attracts attention more for the deaths in the marble quarries.

nearly 63 miners died in a methane gas explosion which took place in the Skochinsky coalmine, Donetsk, Ukraine. This was one of the Ukraine's worst mining disasters. Some 600 persons were

ANGUL: Coal supply to Nalco captive power plant was hit on Tuesday following a fire mishap at the rapid loading system in linked Bharatapur coal mine at Talcher coalfield. The fire destroyed the conveyer of the rapid loading system of Nalco at the mine.

A mild earthquake caused by coal mining shook the western German state of Saarland, causing damage to buildings but no injuries. A police spokesman in the Saarlouis region on the French border said the earthquake measured 4.0 on the Richter scale, the strongest on record in the area, and had knocked over chimneys and caused electricity outages yesterday. After the quake, roughly 1,000 demonstrators gathered near the epicentre in Saarwellingen, the police said, to demand an end to mining work which has sparked dozens of small tremors this year alone.

an explosion in an abandoned underground coalmine tore through several homes in West Bengal's Burdwan district on January 16, 2007. It also caused cracks along a stretch of the National Highway 2