MEZHDURECHENSK, Russia (AP) — Workers labored intensely Tuesday to try to restore ventilation to the Siberian coal mine where 43 miners remain missing more than two days after a pair of explosions roared through the tunnels.

The death toll from the blasts rose to 47 on Tuesday, the Emergencies Ministry said, and the prospect of pulling anyone out alive appeared to be diminishing rapidly. Ministry spokeswoman Veronika Smolskaya said rescuers searching the tunnels have not established contact with any of the missing.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traveled to the Raspadskaya mine, about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, on Tuesday to observe rescue operations, and he raised a series of sharp questions about mine safety and whether the initial rescue work was conducted improperly.

Many of the dead were rescue workers who went into the shafts of Russia's largest underground coal mine after the first blast late Saturday and were caught in the second explosion — which was so powerful that it shattered the main shaft and a five-story building at the mine head.

Both the explosions are being blamed on methane, and Putin questioned why rescuers were sent into the mine without a preliminary assessment of the gas concentration, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

The head of the mine rescue service, Alexander Sin, said rescuers are under orders to immediately render help, the agency reported.

Putin ordered officials to investigate "how production technology was observed, how control instruments operated, what measures the mine managers took to raise reliability, what was the state of individual means of protection and how rescue operations were organized," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

There was no information on what set off the blast. Mine explosions and other industrial accidents are common in Russia and other former Soviet republics, and are often blamed on inadequate implementation of safety precautions by companies or by workers themselves.

But Aman Tuleyev, governor of the Kemerovo region where the mine is located, was quoted by the business newspaper Vedomosti as saying the mine was one of the world's most technically advanced.

The deadliest explosion in Russia's coal mines in decades occurred in March 2007, when 110 miners were killed.

The Raspadskaya mine produces about 10 percent of Russia's coking coal, Vedomosti said, and a long interruption of production could affect Russia's steel industry.

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BAGHDAD (AP) — The death toll for a devastating day of attacks across Iraq rose to 119 on Tuesday as the worst hit cities of Basra and Hilla south of Baghdad reported new deaths from bombings the previous day, the country's deadliest so far this year.The medical official at the Basra morgue said 30 people died, nearly twice as many as were originally reported, in the string of three bombings that ripped through the city on Monday, part of a series of attacks that convulsed the country.In Hillah, which saw Monday's worst attack, police spokesman Maj. Muthana Khalid said five more people had died, raising the toll there to 50 dead. A pair of car bombs near a factory lured rescuers and onlookers to the scene where a suicide bomber detonated himself in their midst.The relentless cascade of bombings and shootings — hitting at least 10 cities and towns as the day unfolded — raised questions about whether Iraqi security forces can protect the country as the U.S. prepares to withdraw half of its remaining 92,000 troops in Iraq over the next four months.Officials were quick to blame insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq for the shootings in the capital, saying the militants were redoubling efforts to destabilize the country at a time of political uncertainty over who will control the next government.The bombings came as Iraq's political factions were still bogged down in negotiations to form a new government more than two months after inconclusive parliamentary elections were held.Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite bloc has tried to squeeze out election front-runner Ayad Allawi — a secular Shiite heavily backed by Sunni Arabs — by forging an alliance last week with another religious Shiite coalition that would dominate any new government.Sunni anger at Shiite domination of successive governments since Saddam Hussein's 2003 ouster was a key reason behind the insurgency that sparked sectarian warfare in 2006 and 2007. If Allawi is perceived as not getting his fair share of power, that could outrage the Sunnis who supported him and lead some to restore their backing to the insurgency.Aside from Hillah, the worst of Monday's violence hit Basra, Iraq's second largest city, where three bombs exploded in the city, including one that targeted a marketplace. Basra has been relatively quiet since Shiite militias were routed in 2008 by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.

GENEVA (AP) — Six U.N. human rights experts say a new law on illegal immigration in Arizona could violate international standards that are binding in the U.S.The basic human rights regulations, signed by the U.S. and many other nations, include a rule against discrimination and one regarding the terms under which someone can be detained.The experts say the law could result in potential discrimination against Mexicans, indigenous peoples and other minorities.The law allows police to question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. Critics in the U.S. say it allows police to engage in racial profiling.The U.N. experts said Tuesday the law indicates a "disturbing pattern of legislative activity hostile to ethnic minorities and immigrants."