Moscow - The bodies of 81 miners had been recovered as of
Tuesday morning after a methane-gas explosion at a coal mine in
central Siberia, and rescue workers were searching for more than 30
miners still missing, Russian's emergency situations minister said.
Rescue teams were working in the galleries that had been hardest
hit by Monday's blast at the Ulyonovsk longwall mine, Sergei Shoigu
said.
'We are proceeding carefully,' he said, according to the Interfax
news agency.
Of the more than 200 men working underground at the time of the
explosion, 93 were pulled alive from the rubble at the mine near the
city of Novokuznetsk more than 3,000 kilometres east of Moscow.
According to unofficial information, among the dead was a British
banker who was examining the mine's safety measures.
Conditions in the mine for the rescue workers had somewhat
improved, an official in the Kemerova regional administration told
Interfax.
'The ventilation in the shafts is better,' Yevgeni Rostalnoy said.
'The gas is receding.'
Doctors were looking after the families of the miners, he added,
after the worst mining disaster ever to hit modern Russia.
The Ulyanovsk mine is one of the most modern mines in the coal-
heavy area of central Siberia known as the Kuzbass, a Soviet-era
industrial centre where coal has been mined for more than 150 years.
The mine has been in operation since 2002, produces 3 million tons
of coal annually and is part of the business empire of the oil and
metals oligarch Roman Abramovich.
More than 200 rescuers were searching for the missing miners.
Their work was hindered initially by smoke and coal dust blocking the
mine's emergency exits, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman
Irina Andrianova said.
A part of the mine had also collapsed, further frustrating
efforts, Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev told the Itar-Tass news
agency.
A spokesman for Yuzhkuzbassugol, the facility's owner, said the
explosion came about after a sudden and inexplicable increase in
methane levels.
Tuleyev, however, said the methane leak occurred after part of the
mine's rock cover collapsed.
Kemerovo region prosecutors opened an investigation into neglect
of safety procedures.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, speaking from South
Africa, said a government commission would investigate the explosion
as well.
Fradkov also promised 'tough measures' to prevent similar
tragedies in the future, Russian news agencies said.
Many of the region's mines and have reported a number of accidents
in recent years. In 2005, 25 people died in a single mine explosion,
and 47 perished in a blast in 2004.
In 1997, the final toll of the what had been the worst mine
explosion in the region was put at 67 at another mine near
Novokuznetsk.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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