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Articles: Blast kills 25 Ukrainian miners

Posted by admin on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 01:46 AM

An explosion has ripped through a Ukrainian coal mine, killing at least 25 miners and trapping 11 more in a blazing pit in the country's biggest mining tragedy in two years, the Emergency Ministry says.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, former governor of Ukraine's coal-producing Donetsk region and a major contender in a forthcoming presidential election, was due to visit the pit later on Tuesday. The accident at the Krasnolimanska mine, 50 km (30 miles) west of Donetsk, was the latest in a long series of tragedies plaguing the industry. Some 250 miners died last year in Ukraine. "Twenty-five people are dead. Their bodies are being recovered now. Rescuers are still looking for 11 coal miners," said a duty officer at the Emergency Ministry. A ministry official in Donetsk said more than 50 rescue teams had suspended work after temperatures in the pit soared to 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,200 Fahrenheit). Krasnolimanska, built almost 50 years ago, is one of Ukraine's most productive mines, but has been struck by deadly accidents. In January 2001, nine miners were killed, with four more dying in the following two years. Forty-eight miners were working when the methane explosion occurred late on Monday nearly a kilometre below ground in the heartland of the Donbass coalfield. Twelve managed to escape. Ukraine's accident rate, the worst in Europe, is blamed on obsolete equipment, lack of funds and shoddy safety conditions. Miners crouch in small, damp seams up to 1,200 metres (3,800 feet) below the surface. Stories are rife of miners wrapping clothing around methane detectors to disable them as safety stoppages mean interruptions in pay for impoverished communities with no alternative employment. Yanukovich, incumbent President Leonid Kuchma's choice to take over from him after the October election, has promised to pay vast wage arrears and other benefits to miners. The prime minister, who takes on liberal opposition standardbearer Viktor Yushchenko and others in the contest, faces a hard task to overhaul an industry employing about 450,000 at 193 mines in the ex-Soviet state's eastern regions. Before Monday evening's accident, the death toll this year in Ukrainian mines had stood at about 100. Energy-poor Ukraine says it needs coal to feed power stations and steel mills, the biggest export industry and major driver behind the country's current economic growth.

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