Rescue workers dug frantically yesterday to reach 65 miners trapped in tunnels underground after an explosion at a Mexican coal mine but there was little hope of finding them alive.

Soldiers and civil protection workers had not yet been able to make contact with the miners and, one day after the gas explosion in a remote, semi-desert region, the workers? six-hour oxygen tanks had almost certainly run out.

Scores of anxious relatives, some wrapped up in blankets against the chill air, others standing around fires for warmth, waited for news overnight outside the mine in the state of Coahuila, which borders Texas.

?We are desperate and thinking the worst,? said Edgar Hernandez, a 25-year-old engineer, whose brother Jose was missing.?The rescue is going really slowly and down there they have no oxygen, no light, nor food.? Soldiers stood at the gates of the mine at the town of San Juan de Sabinas, stopping family members from going inside. More than a dozen ambulances lined up at the entrance, some with engines idling.

?There is an explosive mix of methane gas and it is very dangerous,? said Sergio Robles, head of Coahuila?s civil protection agency, speaking about rescue conditions underground. a?We hold out hope but we have to be realistic,? Robles told Reuters.

Robles said rescuers were working around the clock in shifts but it was not clear how near they were to the miners. Ventilators were pumping out gas but the miners? oxygen tanks had now surely been used up, he said.

?We are waiting for a miracle,? said Delia Baltazar, a woman in her 20s, whose brother was among those trapped.