Time running out for missing miners
Source: Agencies |
May 13, 2010, Thursday
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RUSSIAN rescuers working through the night found eight bodies but no survivors in a stricken Siberian coal mine yesterday after powerful weekend blasts that killed at least 60 people, emergency officials said.
Thirty workers were still missing three days after the explosions in the massive Raspadskaya mine in Mezhdurechensk, in the Kemerovo region about 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow.
Hopes of finding any alive were fading fast as grieving relatives buried the bodies of victims recovered from the mine.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said rescuers were trying to make their way to the remotest corner of the sprawling mine, the Interfax news agency reported.
"We have 24 hours to bring miners out of there, if there are any there," Shoigu was quoted as saying.
An explosion authorities said was a methane gas blast ripped through the mine late on Saturday, followed hours later by a stronger blast that wrecked the mine's main ventilation shaft and badly damaged buildings on the surface.
The disaster was the deadliest in a Russian mine since 110 people died after a methane blast at the Ulyanovskaya mine, also in the Kemerovo region, in March 2007.
Aman Tuleyev, the governor of the Kemerovo region, said material damages from the blast would likely exceed 5 billion rubles (US$165 million).
"We calculate that damages from the destruction of the buildings above the mine are 700 million rubles and that inside the mine it is about 5 billion rubles," Interfax quoted Tuleyev as saying. "This isn't a final figure."
He estimated that it would take about eight months to repair the damage. However, the Kemerovo region's press service on Tuesday cited mine owner Raspadskaya's director, Gennady Kozovoy, as saying it could take several years to fully restore operations.
Raspadskaya declined to comment yesterday. But Interfax quoted its deputy director Vladimir Goryachkin as saying the company planned to fully restore the most badly damaged section of the mine within eight months.
Raspadskaya says its mine is Russia's largest underground coal mine, and analysts said the disaster could affect supplies and drive up prices in a tight market.
Raspadskaya produced 13 to 14 percent of total Russian coking coal concentrate output last year, supplying Russian steel giants Evraz, MMK and NLMK, Citigroup analysts said in a research note on Tuesday.
Analysts at Troika Dialog said the accident would likely hurt steel makers Evraz and NLMK in addition to Raspadskaya.
The mine could be out of operation for at least a month or two and is unlikely to reach full capacity until the fourth quarter of 2010, the Troika analysts said in a research note on Tuesday.
Thirty workers were still missing three days after the explosions in the massive Raspadskaya mine in Mezhdurechensk, in the Kemerovo region about 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow.
Hopes of finding any alive were fading fast as grieving relatives buried the bodies of victims recovered from the mine.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said rescuers were trying to make their way to the remotest corner of the sprawling mine, the Interfax news agency reported.
"We have 24 hours to bring miners out of there, if there are any there," Shoigu was quoted as saying.
An explosion authorities said was a methane gas blast ripped through the mine late on Saturday, followed hours later by a stronger blast that wrecked the mine's main ventilation shaft and badly damaged buildings on the surface.
The disaster was the deadliest in a Russian mine since 110 people died after a methane blast at the Ulyanovskaya mine, also in the Kemerovo region, in March 2007.
Aman Tuleyev, the governor of the Kemerovo region, said material damages from the blast would likely exceed 5 billion rubles (US$165 million).
"We calculate that damages from the destruction of the buildings above the mine are 700 million rubles and that inside the mine it is about 5 billion rubles," Interfax quoted Tuleyev as saying. "This isn't a final figure."
He estimated that it would take about eight months to repair the damage. However, the Kemerovo region's press service on Tuesday cited mine owner Raspadskaya's director, Gennady Kozovoy, as saying it could take several years to fully restore operations.
Raspadskaya declined to comment yesterday. But Interfax quoted its deputy director Vladimir Goryachkin as saying the company planned to fully restore the most badly damaged section of the mine within eight months.
Raspadskaya says its mine is Russia's largest underground coal mine, and analysts said the disaster could affect supplies and drive up prices in a tight market.
Raspadskaya produced 13 to 14 percent of total Russian coking coal concentrate output last year, supplying Russian steel giants Evraz, MMK and NLMK, Citigroup analysts said in a research note on Tuesday.
Analysts at Troika Dialog said the accident would likely hurt steel makers Evraz and NLMK in addition to Raspadskaya.
The mine could be out of operation for at least a month or two and is unlikely to reach full capacity until the fourth quarter of 2010, the Troika analysts said in a research note on Tuesday.
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