The casualties are the result of underground smoke inhalation as fumes filled the shaft that they had inhabited and carrying out operations.
A total of 77 workers were in the mine with 69 of them escaping out of the incident unscathed.
Reasons behind the high levels of smoke are yet unascertained even as rescue operations continue.
The location of the trapped miners has been ascertained, reported the Global Times but rescuers efforts have been hampered due to high methane levels in the mine.
The mine in question is located in the Prokopyevsky district of Kemerovo Region, Western Siberia, one of the largest coal mining regions of the world with the incident reported to have occurred at 2:15am Moscow Time on 19 January 2013.
The Kuznetsk Basin is located about 3,500 km east of Moscow and produced 192 million tonnes of coal in 2011 which is equal to 57% of all of Russia’s output for that year.
Russian coal mines have had a poor safety record historically with President Vladimir Putin earlier issuing a warning to mine operators to improve standards.
An investigation into the incident is currently underway.
