Moscow - The official number of deaths in Russia's largest
mining disaster in years climbed to 108 Wednesday, with two miners
still missing, as the country marked a day of mourning amid a series
of recent tragedies.
With more than 600 rescuers on the scene of the mine, the bodies
of 50 victims had been identified by early afternoon Moscow time and
divers had searched half of the mines tunnels for victims, regional
officials told Interfax.
An apparent methane-gas explosion caused the country's most lethal
post-Soviet mining accident Monday, when part of the Ulyanovsk coal
mine's rock face fell in on 203 miners working at the facility more
than 3,000 kilometres east of Moscow in the Kemerovo region.
Flags flew at half-mast across the massive country and the lower
house of parliament, the State Duma, observed a moment of silence
Wednesday to honour the memory of those who died in a recent a plane
crash and nursing home fire, in addition to the mine casualties.
Seven people had died in the weekend crash in Samara, a Volga
River city of 1.3 million, and Tuesday's fire in a nursing home in
southern Russia claimed 63.
Wednesday also saw the first two funerals of miners claimed by the
tragedy. Vladimir Kiselyov and Konstantin Zenchyov were buried in the
city of Novokuznetsk, not far from the mine.
'We never abandoned anybody in their suffering, and now our task
is to bury (the victims) worthily,' Aman Tuleyev, governor of
Kemerovo, said in remarks run by Russian news agencies.
The funerals were arranged by the mine's owner, Yuzhkuzbassugol, a
subsidiary of steelmaker Evraz.
The reasons for the explosion remain unclear, and Russia's Federal
Service for Technical, Ecological and Nuclear Control said it would
take at least two weeks to determine what caused the accident.
'We will look at the possible technical reasons very
carefully,' the service's head, Konstantin Pulikovsky was quoted by
Interfax as saying.
He added that technical problems with equipment at the 5-year-old
mine may have led to the methane explosion.
A spokesman for the mine's owner, Yuzhkuzbassugol, said Wednesday
that the mine would return to use, although he could not say when
that would be.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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