Translated material
No chance to survive
The largest disaster in the entire history of Ukraine
Yesterday, a nationwide three-day mourning was declared in Ukraine in connection with the accident at the Zasyadko mine in the Donetsk region. Due to a methane explosion at a depth of 1078 meters on the morning of November 18, at least 80 miners out of 457 working in the face were killed, the fate of another 30 is unknown. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and President Viktor Yushchenko visited the site of the disaster. Vladimir Putin, on behalf of the Russians, expressed sympathy for the Ukrainian people.The Donetsk tragedy risks becoming the largest in the history of independent Ukraine, taking the sad lead from the accident at the Barakov mine in the Lugansk region, where 80 miners died in 2000. At the Donetsk mine, the total number of victims may exceed a hundred. The 30 miners who remained trapped in the pit “have no chance of survival,” Mikhail Volynets, a member of the state commission investigating the incident, said yesterday.
A fire is raging in the emergency lava; measurements indicate an increased content of carbon monoxide. Rescue work was suspended yesterday due to the threat of a new, even more powerful explosion. Rescuers are mainly recovering fragments of bodies and clothing and charred dead bodies from the rubble. Some died on the spot due to the shock wave at the epicenter of the explosion, others due to suffocation.
Yesterday the square in front of the mine was filled with people. At a spontaneous rally, relatives of the victims scolded the mine owners, demanding payment of normal wages and guarantees of labor safety. In pursuit of profit, employers neglect safety rules, miners believe. There are often cases when devices that measure the level of methane content in a mine are specially turned off so that there are no emergency interruptions in work. Since the level of payment depends on production volumes, miners put up with violations. Immediately after the meeting, relatives of the miners, whose bodies had not yet been found, swept away the guards and burst into the office of the head of the commission to investigate the causes of the accident, Andrei Klyuev, demanding clarification of the situation.
The Donetsk prosecutor's office opened a criminal case into the explosion at the mine. Gosgorpromnadzor introduced a special regime of state - round-the-clock - supervision at coal mines of Ukraine regarding degassing of the faces. Head of Government Viktor Yanukovych promised that the families of the victims would receive compensation in the amount of 100 thousand hryvnia (20 thousand dollars). The opinions of the state leaders - the prime minister and the president - on the issue of what to do with the “explosive” Ukrainian mines differ. Viktor Yanukovych urged not to take hasty steps and to wait for the conclusions of the expert commission. The Prime Minister believes that Ukraine needs to “increase coal production, build new mines,” but “it needs to go deeper carefully.” The president called “the government’s efforts to reorganize the coal industry insufficient,” especially with regard to safety measures. But Yushchenko also believes that coal should be continued to be mined .
“Ukrainian mines are dangerous due to the methane reserves accompanying coal, but this is not a reason to close them,” Yuri Morozov, head of the geothermal energy department at the Institute of Renewable Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, told Vremya Novostei. “Both in the USA and Europe they use methods of preliminary degassing of mines, extracting methane, and only then work on coal mining.” According to the expert, the most commonly used degassing method in modern mines is hydraulic fracturing of the coal seam. At the design development stage of a mine, a deep drilling grid is used. The wells are then filled with water, under the powerful pressure of which the methane trap cavities crack. When the water is pumped out, gas flows out through the wells, and miners extract coal without risking their lives.
“In Ukraine, the Ivano-Frankivsk Institute of Oil and Gas is engaged in coal seam hydraulic fracturing technologies,” the scientist explained. According to him, degassing work can be carried out in old mines, it will just cost more: drilling a 1 km well costs an average of 1 million hryvnia (200 thousand dollars). At the same time, with the massive development and application of degassing technologies - subject to the introduction of safety standards at the state level - the work will become cheaper. In addition, methane production will allow mines to meet their energy needs. The scientist considers the safety system at the very emergency Zasyadko mine, where this is not the first tragedy of this kind, to be ineffective, since it is “rather a technology for monitoring methane emissions, rather than degassing.”
The biggest mine accidents in the world
On March 10, 1906, 1,060 people died in an explosion at the Courier mine near Lens, France.
On December 6, 1907, 362 miners were killed in an explosion at the Monongah Mine in West Virginia, USA.
On February 12, 1931, more than 3 thousand people died in an explosion at one of the mines in Manchuria in China.
On April 25, 1942, 1,549 miners died in an explosion at the Chinese Honkeiko mine in Manchuria.
On January 21, 1960, 437 coal miners died in an explosion at the Colebrook mine near Johannesburg in South Africa.
On February 7, 1962, 298 coal miners were killed in a gas explosion at a mine in Saarland, Germany.
On November 9, 1963, 447 miners were killed in a mine explosion in Omuta, Japan.
On May 28, 1965, 375 miners died in a mine fire in the state of Bihar in India.
On June 6, 1972, 427 people were killed in an explosion at a mine in Rhodesia, South Africa.
On December 27, 1975, 372 people died in an explosion and subsequent water leak at a mine in the city of Dhanbad in India.
In 1992, Turkey's worst mining accident in Zonguldak province claimed the lives of 270 miners.
In February 2005, 203 miners died in a mine near the Chinese city of Fuxin.
On March 19, 2007, a methane explosion in the Russian Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 people.