Almost five hundred Romanian miners have blockaded themselves in a coal mine in the south-west of the country, demanding a fair share of the companys profits.

The miners - who began their underground protest on Tuesday in the Oltenia region - want the equivalent of an average monthly salary of about ninety dollars.

Company executives say the mine is a loss-making venture. A number of unemployed miners in the Valea Jiului region are also holding protests to get their jobs back. On Tuesday, the World Bank granted Romania a loan of forty-five million dollars to assist with mine closures and ease the social cost of unemployment for redundant miners.