Related: Mining Miracle in China
Coal Miner's Slaughter
"Methane explosion kills 8 coal miners
MOSCOW — A methane explosion tore through Russia’s largest underground coal mine yesterday, killing eight workers and injuring 24 others, a regional emergency services official said. Of the 312 miners who were below ground at the time of the blast, 66 remained about four hours after the explosion and rescue workers were laboring to extract them, said Valery Korchagin, a spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry in the west Siberian region of Kemerovo, 190 miles east of Moscow (AP)."
"12 dead, 83 trapped after two blasts in Russian mine; Methane gas levels slowing rescue efforts" by Lynn Berry, Associated Press | May 10, 2010
A man visiting a memorial to the victims of the Raspadskaya mine explosions was overcome by grief. (Associated Press)
MOSCOW — Rescue workers scrambled to save 83 people trapped in Russia’s largest underground coal mine after two explosions killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more, officials said.
Among those still trapped early today were rescue workers who had entered the Siberian mine after the first blast.
A high level of methane gas after yesterday’s second, more powerful blast raised fears of further explosions and prevented more rescuers from going into the mine for the rest of the day....
The second explosion destroyed the main air shaft and all of the mine’s above-ground structures, the governor of the Siberian region of Kemerovo told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a meeting with emergency officials, according to a government transcript.
More than 500 emergency workers from around the country struggled throughout the day to ventilate the mine and rebuild mine shafts so the search for those trapped could resume, Valery Korchagin, a spokesman for the Emergency Ministry, said by telephone from Kemerovo, about 2,000 miles east of Moscow.
By late yesterday, it was still too dangerous to enter the mine because of high levels of methane gas, said Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu, who flew to the scene from Moscow to take charge of the operation. “Now we have to do everything possible to avoid a third explosion,’’ the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted him as telling miners’ families....
There was no immediate information on what set off the blast. Mine explosions and other industrial accidents are common in Russia and other former Soviet republics, and are often attributed to inadequate implementation of safety precautions by companies or by workers themselves....
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"Death toll in Russian mine blasts hits 43" by New York Times | May 11, 2010
Relatives of trapped miners waited for news yesterday. An official said there was “less and less hope’’ of a rescue. (Alexander Urakhchin/ Reuters)
MOSCOW — The death toll in a double explosion at a Siberian coal shaft climbed to 43 today, Russian news agencies reported, and among the dead were many rescuers killed trying to reach trapped comrades. Hope was fading for 47 others caught in a darkened subterranean maze of methane gas and flood water in what appeared to be the worst Russian mining disaster in three years....
As the day wore on in the western Siberian city of Mezhdurechensk, the mine caverns were filling with water and no survivors were being recovered....
The search was hampered by high levels of methane, which caused officials to suspend rescue operations for much of Sunday....
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"Rescuers having trouble reaching 38 still trapped in Siberian mine" By Sergey Ponomarev, Associated Press | May 12, 2010
Relatives and friends of a worker killed in the mine explosion mourned at his funeral yesterday in Mezhdurechensk, Russia. The death toll reached 52 yesterday, with dozens still missing. (Reuters Photo)
MEZHDURECHENSK, Russia — Thirty-eight Siberian coal miners are buried so deep in Russia’s largest underground coal mine that rescuers use up most of their oxygen tanks trying to reach them and cannot spend much time searching for the missing men, the regional governor said yesterday.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traveled to the Raspadskaya mine, about 1,900 miles east of Moscow, to observe rescue operations, and he raised a series of sharp questions about mine safety and whether the initial rescue work was conducted properly.
The death toll from the two explosions that hit the mine in the Kemerovo region rose to 52, and prospects of finding any survivors nearly three days after the blasts were dimming.
Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Veronika Smolskaya said rescuers searching the tunnels have not established contact with any of the missing. Ventilation has not been restored to the mine, and rescuers are forced to work with oxygen masks.
Those missing are believed to be some 1,600 feet below the surface and nearly a mile from the nearest shaft, Governor Aman Tuleyev of Kemerovo said....
Two ventilator shafts are ready to be put in operation, but there are points where the coal is smoldering, raising the risk that pumping in additional air could set off a new blast, Tuleyev said.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said that ventilation would be restarted today but not at full power and only in parts of the main shaft, because methane was still accumulating in some of the tunnels.
Many of the dead were rescue workers who went into the shafts after the first blast late Saturday and were caught in the second explosion, which was so powerful that it shattered the main shaft and a five-story building at the mine head.
Both explosions are blamed on methane.
Putin questioned why rescuers were sent into the mine without a preliminary assessment of the gas concentration, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
The head of the mine rescue service, Alexander Sin, said rescuers are under orders to immediately render help.
Putin ordered officials to investigate “how production technology was observed, how control instruments operated, what measures the mine managers took to raise reliability, what was the state of individual means of protection and how rescue operations were organized.’’
There was no information on what set off the blast. Mine explosions and other industrial accidents are common in Russia and other former Soviet republics, and are often blamed on inadequate implementation of safety precautions by companies or by workers themselves....
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Today's update:
Globe must have given up on the search.
