Mahanadi Coalfields landslide: The firm said it will take a week to resume operations (Representational)

Four workers are feared dead and nine have been injured in a landslide at a Coal India Ltd mine in Odisha, news agency Reuters quoted a company spokesperson as saying on Wednesday.

The open cast mine in Odisha, with production capacity of 20,000 tonnes a day, has been shut after the late Tuesday accident, said Dikken Mehra, a spokesman for Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd, the largest coal producer in the world.

"It will take at least a week to resume operations," Mr Mehra said.

Local officials said the landslide was triggered by a controlled explosion at the site, news agency PTI reported.

India's numerous mines, some of them illegal and often in remote hilly terrain, also have a poor safety record, although there is little data as many accidents go unreported.

In December last year, 15 miners were killed in an illegal "rat-hole" coal mine in Meghalaya after it collapsed when water from a nearby river seeped into the mine.