The death toll from a gas blast at a Siberian colliery has risen to 40 while hopes for the survival of seven more missing miners dim as rescuers dig with their bare hands to reach them.
The explosion tore through the Taizhina mine in the Kemerovo district early on Saturday.
"There are 40 dead," Federal Energy Agency head Sergei Oganesyan told reporters. "Seven are still unaccounted for... It's most likely we will just find their bodies."
Rescue teams worked through the night, but could not use machinery because of the risk of a fresh explosion on Sunday and had to rely on the light from their headlamps as they tunnelled through the earth and rock.
"They're digging by hand to try to get through. A lot of earth has fallen down. They can't use machinery because of the danger of a spark," said Ilgiz Galeev, head of the regional emergency health services.
Asked if the missing miners could still be alive, he replied: "There's always hope."
The wives of three of the dead sat weeping in the mine's assembly hall while their young daughters stood outside with reddened eyes.
Several miners scrambled out after the blast. Others were pulled free with serious burns. Two of those who walked out were father and son.
Footage on Russian state television showed teams hoisting body bags out of the pit and rescue workers emerging from below, their faces blackened.
Kemerovo's high-profile governor, Aman Tuleyev, shown on television coordinating rescue efforts, said teams were making their way towards the trapped miners by both a direct route and a five km (3 mile) detour through a nearby mineshaft.
"There's always hope, though a small one," said emergency services spokesman Vladimir Berdnikov. "The work will continue while there's oxygen left."
The pit lies in the Kuzbass coalfield where accidents are a regular occurrence.
The Taizhina mine is a new shaft that had been open for only about four years.
Russian television described it as a modern facility in an industry in which frequent accidents are blamed on lax operating procedures and old equipment. Prosecutors said they had launched a criminal investigation into the blast.
Mining accidents are even more frequent in neighbouring Ukraine's Donbass coalfield, where some collieries date from the 19th century.