At least 61 people were killed on Monday when a gas explosion ripped through a Russian coal mine, a spokesperson for the regional governor told the media.
”Sixty-one miners are dead and 88 have been rescued and brought to the surface,” the spokesperson said by telephone. He said 183 people were in the mine at the time of the blast.
Three of those rescued after the methane-gas explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine near the town of Novokuznetsk in the south-west Siberian region of Kemerovo were injured, the spokesperson said.
Twelve teams of specialist emergency workers are taking part in the rescue operation and more are expected to arrive from the regional centres of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu to travel to the scene of the accident to oversee the operation, Russian news agencies reported.
The coal industry in Kemerovo has suffered from chronic unedrfunding since the collapse of the Soviet Union and there have been several accidents in recent years.
Twenty-three miners were killed by a gas explosion in 2005 in Kemerovo region and two separate mine blasts in the area in 2004 killed a total of 60 miners. — AFP
