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Eight people have been confirmed dead, and 38 remain trapped underground after a gas explosion in a coal mine in Qinyuan County, North China's Shanxi Province, on Friday night, according to a release from the Qinyuan County Emergency Management Bureau.

At 7:29 pm on Friday, a gas explosion occurred at the Liushenyu coal mine, operated by Shanxi Tongzhou Group in Qinyuan County, where a total of 247 workers were underground at the time, per the release published Saturday morning. 

Following the incident, Party committees and governments at the provincial, city, and county levels attached great importance to the situation. Principal officials immediately made arrangements and deployments, promptly activated the emergency response mechanism, and rushed to the scene to direct rescue operations, the release said. 

As of 6 am on Saturday, 201 people had been safely brought to the surface, eight people had been confirmed dead, and intensive search and rescue operations for the remaining 38 miners trapped underground were still underway. The cause of the accident is under investigation, according to the local emergency management bureau.