Hope dims for missing Ukrainian miners
DONETSK, Ukraine - Rescuers battled a raging fire and a rock slide Monday in search of 20 trapped coal miners after a powerful methane blast killed at least 80 others in one of Ukraine’s deadliest mining disasters of the post-Soviet era.
Dozens of weeping relatives waited at the Zasyadko mine headquarters for word on the fates of their loved ones. Cries and sobs broke out as officials called out names of miners found dead. Women buried their faces in their hands, while others extended their arms in the air and some fainted.
Some 356 miners scrambled to the surface after Sunday’s blast, which occurred at a depth of about 3,300 feet.
A regional emergency ministry spokesman, Oleksandr Soldatov, said 80 miners were confirmed dead and 20 were missing.
President Viktor Yushchenko ordered a government commission to investigate the accident and called for an overhaul of the coal-mining sector.
In Donetsk, the heart of the former Soviet republic’s coal industry, flags flew at half-staff to begin three days of mourning. Some flags were decorated with black ribbons.
Mykhailo Volynets, head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners, said the bodies pulled from the area where the miners were believed to be trapped were burned - indicating the others likely did not survive.
The blast was the deadliest accident in Ukraine’s coal industry in at least seven years. A March 2000 explosion at a coal mine in the neighboring Luhansk region that killed 81 was the country’s worst mining disaster since the Soviet collapse.
The explosion at Zasyadko highlighted persistent problems that plague the coal-mining industry. Experts say Ukraine’s mines are dangerous largely because they are so deep, typically running more than 3,280 feet underground. Most European coal beds are 1,640 to 1,970 feet deep.
More than 75 percent of Ukraine’s roughly 200 coal mines are classified as dangerous because of high levels of methane, a natural byproduct of mining that increases in concentration with depth. Mines must be ventilated to prevent explosions, but some rely on outdated ventilation equipment.
Safety violations and negligence add to the problem.
Volynets said Ukrainian mines routinely neglect safety rules and workers are paid by the amount of coal they extract, not by the hour. He said miners often disable gas detectors that monitor the level of methane to continue working.