A total of 47 miners died as a result of the weekend’s pit explosion in central Siberia, Russian rescuers said on Monday as remains of most victims were pulled from the collapsed facility.
After recovering 44 bodies, officials said they held out no hopes of saving three missing men at the Taizhina mine located at the town of Ossiniki in the Kuzbass mining region, about 3 000km east of Moscow.
Methane gas exploded on Saturday at a depth of 500m, causing the collapse of galleries around 53 workers and scattering bodies along a 2,5km stretch of tunnel. Only six survived.
Relatives had hoped for a repeat of the miracle that saw the rescue of 11 miners trapped last October at a flooded pit in nearby Novoshaktinsk. But the steady recovery of the bodies since Saturday signalled a major tragedy.
This was Russia’s worst mining accident since 1997 when 67 workers died in a blast at another mine in the Kemerovo region where the Kuzbass is situated.
The accident appeared to stem from breaches of elementary safety regulations that also led to earlier accidents in this hub of the country’s coal mining industry, news reports said.
Prosecutors began a criminal investigation, although such proceedings were repeatedly closed in the past with the assertion that the dead men triggered explosions through carelessness.
Russia’s depressed mining industry employs 320 000 men, most of whom earn a monthly wage of about €200 that is often paid with long delays.
Underfunding of pits means safety precautions like draining of underground lakes are not taken. — Sapa-DPA