KUNMING -- Eleven miners were killed in a coal and gas outburst at a coal mine in Fuyuan, a county in eastern Yunnan Province, local sources said.

The No.1 team for comprehensive digging tasks of Bailongshan Coal Mine, with 11 miners on the team, were working beneath the coal mine on Saturday and the tragedy occurred around 6:38 p.m. when the conveyor belt was blocked by the coal and gas outburst, killing seven miners on the spot and leaving four more missing, according to information provided by the Fuyuan County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Nature of the coal mine is unknown.

Rescuers found remains of all of the 11 miners by 2:40 p.m. on Sunday.

Rescue operation came to an end, but cause of the accident is being investigated.

Though coal mines across China have been widely considered the most dangerous in the world, the number of coal mine accidents and fatalities caused therein has been decreasing.

In northeast China's Jilin Province, for instance, there were 61 cases of coal mines accidents in the first six months of the year, causing 81 deaths, both showing decreases of 4.7 percent and 25 percent compared to statistics for the same period last year, according to Zhang Peilin, an official with Jilin Provincial Bureau of Work Safety.