Five men were still buried inside a coalmine in central Bosnia yesterday after it collapsed, initially trapping 34 miners.

Zenica mine manager Esad Civic said the rescue effort had been halted after emergency workers pulled out 29 miners.

Rescuers said they had not been able to reach the remaining five.

Families and union leaders accused management of responding poorly to the collapse after claiming at first that only eight workers were trapped in the pit. 

Union leaders said managers only brought in rescue machinery seven hours after the blast.

Mr Civic, however, insisted that “mine accidents cannot be avoided.”

Thirty-four miners had been trapped deep inside the pit, coal miners’ union leader Mehmed Oruc said, after two tunnels in the mine collapsed following a gas explosion.

He said that 22 other miners had managed to leave the pit after the collapse.

It was the third accident in the mine since the start of the year.