MOSCOW, March 19 (Xinhua) -- An explosion ripped through a coalmine in Russia's Siberia on Monday but it was not clear if there were casualties, the Interfax news agency reported citing an emergency official.

    The blast occurred at 11:16 a.m. Moscow time (0816 GMT) at the Ulyanovskaya mine in Novokuznetsk, a city in the Kemerovo region, an official of the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

    "According to preliminary information, 180 people might have been inside the mine at the moment of the accident," he told Interfax.