Methane must be pumped out before rescue can resume to save 84 workers still trapped underground

MOSCOW - Two explosions tore through Russia's largest underground coal mine, killing at least 12 workers and injuring 41 others, an emergency services ministry official said on Sunday. A further 84 people remained trapped in the mine, including rescue workers.

Ministry spokeswoman Elena Chernova said on state news TV channel Rossiya-24 that rescue work had been suspended after the second blast, which happened early Sunday morning.

The head of the emergency ministry's regional division, Erem Arutunian, said rescue work was unlikely to resume Sunday because workers were trying to ventilate methane from the mine, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

The first blast, believed to have been caused by methane, hit the Raspadskaya mine in western Siberia just before midnight Saturday and the second about 3 1/2 hours later. There were 359 workers below ground at the time of the first explosion, Chernova said.

The second blast destroyed the main air shaft and caused more injuries, and there is risk of more explosions, said Aman Tuleyev, the governor of the west Siberian region of Kemerovo, according to state news agency ITAR-Tass.

"The rescue work will continue when the atmosphere in the mine is restored, but to conduct rescue work now means to send people to die," Tuleyev was quoted as saying.

The mine, the Raspadskaya, produces about 8 million tons of coal every year, according to the figures from the company's website.

The Kemerovo region is about 3,000 km east of Moscow.

There was no immediate information on what set off the blast.

In December, nine people were killed in an explosion at an iron-ore mine in the Urals Mountains region that was blamed on faulty transportation of explosives.

Associated Press

(China Daily 05/10/2010 page11)