MOSCOW — A methane gas explosion in a Siberian coal mine today killed at least nine miners, a Russian emergency official said.

At least two other miners were injured by the blast at the Ulyanovskaya mine in Siberia's Kemerovo region, Valery Korchagin, spokesman for the regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry, said by telephone.

There were 168 workers in the Ulyanovskaya mine when the blast occurred, and 21 were evacuated safely within about an hour, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Veronika Smolskaya said earlier. It was not immediately clear whether the others were in danger.

Rescuers were continuing efforts to evacuate workers from the mine, which is in a coal-rich part of central Siberia called the Kuzbass.

LONDON — Prince Charles' wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is to become a grandmother later this year, a British newspaper reported Sunday.Sara Buys, who is married to Camilla's son Tom Parker Bowles, is expecting the couple's first child in September, the paper said."We have told our friends and family, and they are delighted," Parker Bowles, 32, was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "Mummy is absolutely over the moon at the prospect of becoming a grandmother.""It's the best news ever, and we are thrilled," Buys, 34, was quoted as saying.