Fear of a second gas explosion was slowing efforts to find 15 coal miners missing 1km underground after a blast that killed at least eight miners.
The accident happened on Tuesday afternoon as the men, aged between 21 and 59, were retrieving equipment from a dangerous section of the Halemba mine in the southern city of Ruda Slaska.
Grzegorz Pawlaszek, head of the state-owned Coal Co, said rescue teams had recovered seven bodies from the scene of the blast. Another body had been located but could not be reached because the high concentration of methane gas meant there was the risk of another explosion.
He said the fate of the other 15 was not known. Locator devices carried by the missing miners were emitting no signals.
Still, "there is a chance to find someone still alive," Palwaszek said.
He said rescuers were monitoring the concentration of gas seeping out of the rock before deciding whether to move further ahead through the rubble-filled tunnels.
Early yesterday morning, company spokesman Zbigniew Madej said officials had decided to install ventilator dams to try to lower methane levels in the shaft and allow rescuers to push ahead.
The affected shaft was closed in March because high gas concentrations made further work there too dangerous, Pawlaszek said. However, equipment worth 70 million zlotys (US$23.7 million) was left behind.
"It was new equipment and that is why we decided to retrieve it," Pawlaszek said, adding the work was done under increased security and under the supervision of specialists in detecting gas.
He said the recovered bodies had burns and were hard to identify because ID tags were torn away in the blast.
Earlier, Madej said 15 rescue workers were digging their way through 500m of rubble in the hope of finding survivors but said ventilation systems had been damaged.
Inside the mine complex, officials and priests were counseling distraught relatives seeking word on missing loved ones.
Miners leaving the premises early yesterday after completing their shifts in parts of the mine still operating were downcast.
"There is fear," said Krzysztof Przybyla, a 34-year-old who knew some of those trapped. "This could have happened to any of us."
Labor unions complain that a lack of investment and massive layoffs in recent years have resulted in falling safety standards at the nation's mines.
The Halemba mine, located in the heart of the Silesia industrial region, opened in 1957 -- making it one of the oldest -- and has a record of serious accidents.
In 1990, 19 miners were killed and 20 injured in a gas explosion there and a 1991 cave-in killed five more. Earlier this year, a Halemba miner was rescued after he spent five days underground following a gas explosion.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
RSS