A methane explosion killed 38 people at a Siberian coal mine on Thursday, just weeks after 110 miners died in a blast at a neighbouring mine operated by the same company.
Rescue workers halted work as no more miners were thought to be missing at the Yubileynaya pit in the Kemerovo region of western Siberia, emergency officials said.
Miners’ relatives, many of them in tears, scoured a list of the dead hanging on a wall at the mine’s headquarters.
”They will start bringing the bodies to the surface now,” said one woman with tears welling in her eyes. ”They say they have identified everyone.”
The blast ripped through the mine at 7.40am Moscow time when 217 people were below ground.
Russia’s industrial safety watchdog said its inspectors had twice applied to have the Yubileynaya Mine closed for safety violations, including in the shaft at the centre of the blast, but they were overruled by local courts.
Miners with coal-stained faces smoked nervously as a soft drizzle fell on the mine, a collection of rusting and poorly painted Soviet-era buildings surrounded by wooded hills.
Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev declared Saturday a day of mourning in the region. President Vladimir Putin, on a visit to Western Europe, expressed his condolences.
The Yubileynaya Mine, which opened in 1966 and employs about 1 000 people, is about 40km away from the Ulyanovskaya pit where 110 people died in March.
That was Russia’s worst mining accident since the fall of the Soviet Union and triggered a government inquiry that pointed to poor safety standards.
Both mines are operated by Yuzhkuzbassugol, a company that is 50% owned by its management, which has operational control, and 50% by steelmaker Evraz Group. Yuzhkuzbassugol declined immediate comment on Thursday’s blast. — Reuters