According to Russian officials, a massive explosion in a Siberian coal mine killed 52 miners and rescuers around 250 meters (820 feet) underground on Thursday.
Rescuers discovered 14 dead hours after a methane gas explosion and fire, flooded the mine with hazardous gases but were forced to call off the search for 38 others due to a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire. A total of 239 people have been rescued.
According to emergency officials quoted by the state news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti, there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia.
The Interfax news agency reported a spokesperson of the regional administration who also estimated the death toll from Thursday’s disaster at 52, claiming they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
It was Russia’s deadliest mining disaster since 2010 when two methane explosions and a fire at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region killed 91 people.
When the blast occurred early Thursday in the Listvyazhnaya mine, smoke soon flooded the mine through the ventilation system, killing 285 people. 239 miners were brought to the surface by rescuers, 49 of them were injured, and 11 bodies were discovered.
Six rescuers perished later that day while searching for others trapped in a distant portion of the mine, according to press sources.
Three days of mourning have been designated by regional officials.
Dmitry Demeshin, Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General, told reporters that the fire was most likely triggered by a methane explosion caused by a spark.
After reaching the surface, the miners who survived reported their horror.
“Impact. Air. Dust. “Then we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” Sergey Golubin, one of the rescued miners, said on television. “At first, we didn’t realize what had happened and put some gas in.”
Rustam Chebelkov, another miner, remembered the dramatic moment when he and his friends were rescued as the mine descended into anarchy.
He said, “I was crawling and suddenly I felt them grasp me.” “I reached out to them, but they couldn’t see me because the visibility was poor.” We would have died if it hadn’t been for them grabbing me and pulling me out.”
Methane explosions from coal beds during mining are uncommon, yet they are the most deadly in the coal mining sector.
According to the Interfax news agency, miners’ oxygen supplies are normally good for six hours but could only be extended for a few more.
The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal investigation into the fire, citing safety violations that resulted in deaths. The mine director and two top managers, according to the report, were held.
President Vladimir Putin expressed his sympathies to the victims’ families and instructed the administration to provide all necessary help to those who were injured.
The fire at the Listvyazhnaya mine on Thursday wasn’t the mine’s first fatal catastrophe. A methane explosion killed 13 miners in 2004.
In the deadliest mine accident since Soviet times, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 miners in 2007.
A series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia’s far north killed 36 miners in 2016. Following the incident, authorities assessed the safety of the country’s 58 coal mines, declaring 20 of them, or 34%, to be potentially dangerous.
According to media reports, the Listvyazhnaya mine was not among them at the time.
Rostekhnadzor, Russia’s official technology, and ecological watchdog investigated the mine in April and found 139 infractions, including a violation of fire safety laws.
