Mount Diwata, Philippines ? Toxic fumes forced rescuers on Friday to abandon an effort to find up to 50 miners inside the tunnel of a gold mine that collapsed after an explosion.

The mine operated by JB Management and Mining Corp. in the southern mountain village of Mount Diwata caved in amid an explosion Wednesday. A village official said the known death toll was 18, although the police put the number at six.

At least 10 miners have been rescued, the Office of Civil Defense said.

Village chief Franco Tito said fumes of unknown origin prevented rescue workers – equipped only with rudimentary masks – from entering. They decided to wait for two days before trying again, he said.

“Rescuers refused to enter. They just withdrew,” he said. “They went around to another tunnel and tried to enter from there, but the condition is the same.”

Tito said one survivor told him the blast occurred when dynamite ignited inside the tunnel, but the civil defense office dismissed that account, saying a compressor supplying air to the mine had apparently exploded.

Provincial police Senior Supt. Nestor Quinsay said one miner’s body was recovered Friday from a nearby tunnel that also collapsed after the explosion, bringing to six the number of confirmed deaths. Quinsay said mining company officials told investigators 11 miners were missing and feared trapped in the collapsed tunnel.

Tito said villagers told him they saw 18 bodies removed earlier from the compound and that six have been identified. He said survivors also told him 50 other miners remained trapped.

The conflicting numbers could not be immediately reconciled because “no one has come forward to make an official statement,” Tito said, citing fears by villagers that the accident could force authorities to shut down mining operations in the area.

Quinsay said authorities will try to vacuum the toxic fumes in the next two days, but that there would then be little hope of finding more survivors.