Just outside the gates of the vast Zasyadko mine, men accustomed to digging coal took up a grimmer job -- digging graves for colleagues killed in post-Soviet Ukraine's worst mining disaster.
A methane blast ripped through tunnels hundreds of meters below ground on Sunday, killing at least 90 people and rending hearts throughout the city at the center of Ukraine's vital but troubled coal industry.
Flags flew at half-staff nationwide on Tuesday. Hope of finding anyone still alive underground virtually vanished; 10 miners remain unaccounted for.
"Of course, this is a mournful day for all of us -- we are digging graves for our dead comrades," mine electrician Stanislav Omelyanenko said at a cemetery just outside the grounds of the mine.
At that cemetery and others, 17 of the victims were buried on Tuesday.
Zasyadko, one of Ukraine's biggest and best-known mines, has been the site of repeated accidents in the past decade. Ukraine's mines, regarded as among the world's most dangerous, are an important element of the country's economy.
The previous highest death toll in a Ukrainian mine was 81 killed in an explosion in the Luhansk region in 2000.
The bodies pulled from the area where the remaining miners were believed to have been trapped were burnt, indicating that others could not have survived, Mykhailo Volynets, the head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners, said on Monday.
"Unfortunately, there is no hope," Volynets said.
Tuesday was declared a day of mourning across the nation of 47 million. President Viktor Yushchenko, who visited Donetsk on Monday, ordered a government commission to investigate the accident and called for an overhaul of the coal mining sector.
More than three-quarters of Ukraine's roughly 200 coal mines are classified as dangerous because of high levels of methane, the concentration of which increases with depth. Mines must be ventilated to prevent explosions, but some rely on outdated ventilation equipment.
Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev said that wasn't the case at Zasyadko.
"This is one of the most advanced mines, and it has the most modern methods of protection against methane," Klyuyev said. "Unfortunately, the deeper the mine, the more problems we encounter."
Experts say Ukraine's mines are dangerous largely because they are so deep, typically running more than 1,000m underground. Most European coal beds lie at a depth of 500m to 600m.
Volynets said that Ukrainian mines routinely neglect safety rules and workers are paid by the amount of coal they extract, not by the hour.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS