Twenty bodies were found Friday in an abandoned mine in central Mexico, a public security official said.

The official told local broadcasters that the bodies were found in a mine that is at least 30 meters deep in a neighborhood in Pachuca, the state capital of Hidalgo.

A large area around the scene has been closed off. Soldiers, fire fighters and public security officials are working together to investigate the discovery.

The official said the bodies were highly decomposed?so the authorities haven't identified their names, nor how they died.

Pachuca was a mining center for nearly 400 years, but most of the mines were abandoned during the middle of the last century.