FACTBOX-Some of the world's worst mining accidents

Nov 18 (Reuters) - A methane explosion ripped through a mine in Ukraine's Donbass coalfield on Sunday, killing at least 63 miners and leaving 37 missing in underground shafts engulfed by fire and smoke. It was the latest of a string of accidents in the region's outdated mines.

Below are some of the world's worst mining disasters:

* WORST EVER:

-- China holds the record for the largest number of people killed in a mining disaster. On April 26, 1942, 1,572 people died in a coal dust explosion at the Honkeiko coal mine.

* SOME RECENT MAJOR MINING DISASTERS:

August 1990 - BOSNIA - 180 coal miners die after a gas explosion causes the main pit shaft to cave in at the colliery in Dobrnja, near Tuzla.

April 1991 - CHINA - A gas explosion kills 147 coal miners at the Sanjiao River mine in Shanxi province in northern China.

March 2000 - UKRAINE - At least 80 miners are killed when a methane gas explosion rips through the Barakova coal mine in Luhansk. It was the country's worst mining disaster since independence in 1991.

October 2004 - CHINA - The Daping mine in Henan province explodes, killing 148.

November 2004 - CHINA - A gas explosion tears through the state-owned Chenjiashan coal mine in Shaanxi province; 166 miners are killed but more than 120 escape.

February 2005 - CHINA - A gas explosion at the Sunjiawan colliery of the state-owned Fuxin Coal Industry Group kills 214.

November 2005 - CHINA - A gas explosion kills 169 people at the state-owned Dongfeng coal mine in Heilongjiang province.

Sept 2006 - INDIA - Fifty miners are killed after the roof of a coal mine collapses following an explosion in the eastern state of Jharkhand.

-- KAZAKHSTAN - At least 41 people are killed after an underground explosion tears through the Lenin mine belonging to Mittal Steel.

March 2007 - RUSSIA - Blast rips through Siberian coal mine, killing at least 110 people.

May 2007 - RUSSIA - Thirty-eight miners die in a methane explosion at the Yubileynaya mine in Siberia.

Sept 2007 - CHINA - Coal mine shaft floods in the eastern province of Shandong, killing 181 miners.

Nov 2007 - UKRAINE - A methane blast more than 1,000 metres (3,000 feet) underground at the Zasyadko mine in the Donbass coalfield's main town, Donetsk, kills at least 63 miners. Thirty-seven miners are still missing. (Writing by David Cutler and Nagesh Narayan, London Editorial Reference Unit)