24 Ukrainian miners found alive after huge blast

TWENTY-FOUR miners have been found alive more than 24 hours after they were trapped deep underground by a huge Ukrainian coalmine explosion.

One miner was found dead 750m underground.

The survivors have been delivered to hospital, several suffering burns and other injuries, but rescuers are still racing against rising flood waters in the mine in eastern Ukraine to find 12 men still missing after Sunday's methane blast.

"The rescuers are doing everything possible and even impossible to assist other possible survivors," , a spokeswoman for Ukraine's mine safety agency, Marina Nikitina, said.