Russia mine blast kills 71, more underground

ULYANOVSKAYA MINE: A methane explosion killed 71 miners in a Siberian coal mine on Monday in the deadliest accident in Russia's mining industry in at least a decade, rescuers said.   

The death toll could climb steeply with more than 40 miners still underground about 10 hours after the blast. Rescue work was being hampered by thick smoke and roof collapses in horizontal shafts that stretched for up to 5 km.   

"Seventy-one bodies have been found," said an official at the rescue operation headquarters set up at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region. "Rescue efforts are continuing," the official said.   

President Vladimir Putin ordered his emergencies minister to fly to the mine to oversee the rescue effort.   

"The main task now is to find as many people as possible," Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev said in footage broadcast by the Rossiya television station.   

Television pictures showed rescue workers in breathing apparatus walking down a shaft into the pit. They also showed one miner, his clothes black with dirt, lying motionless on a stretcher as emergency workers transferred him into an ambulance.   

The rescue headquarters official said 200 miners had been in the pit at the time of the blast. Eighty-three people had been evacuated safely to the surface, he said, leaving 46 below.       

At the entrance to the mine complex, security guards prevented reporters from getting close to the pit. Ambulances and rescue vehicles were driving to and from the site, a photographer at the scene told Reuters.   

"It is a very tough situation down there," Rossiya television quoted ambulance worker Yuri Shchetinin as saying. "There are a lot of miners there. We will try to get them out."   

The blast was the deadliest in a long line of fatal accidents in Russian mines, many of which are several decades old and lack modern equipment.   

Last year, 25 Russian miners died in a fire at a gold mine in eastern Siberia. A gas explosion at a coal mine in Kemerovo in 2004 killed 45 people.   

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said there would be a review of industry safety standards.   

"Tougher measures will be taken to ensure workers' safety in such dangerous locations," he said in televised comments from South Africa, where he is on a visit.   

The mine belongs to the Yuzhkuzbassugol company, in which Russia's second-biggest steelmaker, Evraz, holds a 50 per cent stake. Yuzhkuzbassugol's management owns the other 50 percent and has operational control of the company.   

Evraz declined to comment on Monday. There was no marked change in its share price on the London Stock Exchange.   

The Ulyanovskaya mine was opened in 2002, making it unusually new by the standards of Russia's mining industry.