Eighty-three miners and rescuers were trapped in a Russian mine yesterday after twin methane gas blasts killed 12 and then ensnared the salvage workers who descended down the shaft to find survivors.
Rescue efforts were suspended at the Raspadskaya mine in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia because of the dangerous conditions, with the local governor saying that ordering more rescue workers inside would be a death sentence.
The tragedy cast a shadow hours ahead of a military parade in Russia to mark the Soviet victory over the Nazis 65 years ago in World War II, the biggest event of its kind since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The first blast went off late on Saturday while 370 people were working in the mine.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said 12 miners were killed and 55 wounded, the Interfax news agency said. Three hundred miners managed to climb to the surface and safety themselves.
However, around two hours later — after rescuers had entered the mine to find survivors and bring corpses to the surface — a second explosion went off, trapping both the remaining miners and the rescue workers themselves.
There are now 83 people trapped in the mine, including 19 rescue workers, Shoigu said. The last radio contact with the rescuers was 30 minutes before the second explosion.
State television pictures showed that the explosions had been so powerful that the surface infrastructure of the mine had been reduced to smoking wrecks. Seven corpses have already been pulled to the surface
“The rescue efforts will resume once the atmosphere is restored in the mine,” said Kemerovo regional Governor Aman Tuleyev, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency.
“But to carry out rescue work now — that would be sending people to their deaths,” he said.
Loved ones of the miners, many in tears, gathered outside the management of the mine in the town of Mezhdurechensk, where a list of the missing had been pinned up.
The governor canceled his attendance at the regional victory parade to stay at the scene of the disaster while Russian Emergencies Minister Segei Shoigu was on his way to the area, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Raspadskaya is part-owned by steelmaker Evraz, a company 36 percent owned by Chelsea Football Club’s billionaire chief Roman Abramovich.
It supplies coking coal to several metallurgical plants in Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Asia.
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