Death toll soars to 52 in Russian coal mine accident – reports
At least 52 people are reported to have died in Russia's
worst mining disaster in a decade.
The incident started when coal dust in a ventilation shaft
caught fire on Thursday, filling the Siberian mine with smoke and killing 11.
By nightfall, a failed operation to reach dozens of missing
miners had turned to tragedy after several rescuers reportedly suffocated.
An emergency services source told one news agency "no
one is left alive".
The majority of the 285 people in the the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region some 3,500km (2,175 miles) east of Moscow, escaped in the immediate aftermath of the incident, at around 08:35 local time (01:35 GMT) on Thursday.
Officials said 49 had been taken to hospital with injuries.
Some of the injured have smoke poisoning, and four are said to be in a critical
condition.
Dozens of miners were unable to escape after the initial
incident, but rescue operations had to be suspended after dangerously high
levels of methane were detected in the mine, prompting fears of possible
explosions.
One of the rescue teams then failed to emerge from the mine.
The bodies of three rescuers were later found, bringing the official death toll
to 14.
Then late on Thursday several sources told Russian media
agencies that no further survivors were expected to be found and the death toll
had risen to more than 50, including six rescuers in total.
Three people, including the mine director, have been
arrested over alleged safety failings, Reuters news agency reports.
This is not the first accident at the mine, according to
local media, with a methane gas explosion killing 13 in 2004. More widely,
accidents in Russian mines are not uncommon.
In 2016, authorities assessed the safety of the country's 58
coal mines and declared 34% of them potentially unsafe. The list did not
include the Listvyazhnaya mine at the time, Russian reports say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hoped "(they)
will be able to save as many people as possible", describing the loss of
life as "a great tragedy".
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