“So far the bodies of 36 people have been found, and the search for 10 miners continues,” the agency told the Kazakhstan daily Kazakhstanskaya Pravda.

Earlier in the day, the mining company itself reported in a statement that 18 workers had been injured and 31 others were missing, and that the cause of the accident was a methane gas explosion.

The President of Kazakhstan, Kasim-Yomart Tokaev, instructed the government to suspend investment collaboration with the company.

Last August, another mine belonging to the company also suffered a fire, in which five miners died. The Kazakh leader then criticized ArcelorMittal Temirtauk for violating labor safety norms.

ArcelorMittal Temirtau is part of the ArcelorMittal Group, a world leader in the field of metallurgy and mining, which since the beginning of the current century has purchased almost all the metallurgical facilities and mines of many of the republics that were part of the Soviet Union.

mh/mem/gfa