Russian Coal Mine Blast Kills 61

Mar 19, 07:20 PM

Current Headlines: A methane explosion killed 61 people when it ripped through a coal mine in Russia yesterday, a regional spokesman said, the deadliest accident in the area in about three years.

Almost 40 miners remained underground several hours after the explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine, in Siberia's Kemerovo region. Media quoted rescue workers as saying the evacuation was being hampered by smoke underground.

"Yes, I can confirm that 61 miners have died," a spokesman for the regional administration said. Officials previously said the blast killed 28 people.

President Vladimir Putin ordered his emergencies minister to fly to the mine to oversee the rescue.

"The main task now is to find as many people as possible," Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev said in footage broadcast by the Rossiya television station.

Television footage from the pit showed one miner lying motionless, his clothes black with dirt, before emergency workers transferred him into an ambulance.

The spokesman for the regional administration said 186 miners had been underground when the blast occurred at about 0800 GMT and that 88 had been safely brought up to the surface while 37 were still believed to be underground.

The blast was the latest in a long line of fatal accidents in Russian mines, many of which are several decades old and lack modern equipment.

Last year, 25 Russian miners died in a fire at a gold mine in eastern Siberia. A gas explosion at a coal mine in Kemerovo in 2004 killed 45 people.

Security guards prevented reporters from getting close to the pit. The only sign of activity was ambulances and rescue vehicles driving to and from the site, a photographer at the scene said.

The mine belongs to the Yuzhkuzbassugol company, in which Russia's second-biggest steelmaker, Evraz, holds a 50 percent stake. Yuzhkuzbassugol's management owns the other 50 percent and has operational control of the company.

Evraz declined to comment yesterday. There was no marked change in its share price on the London Stock Exchange.

The Ulyanovskaya mine was opened in 2002, making it unusually new by the standards of Russia's mining industry. It produces 3 million metric tons of coal a year, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

Agencies

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