04 August 2004, 10:15 Society

The miners went under the rubble

Evgenia Malyar At the Severnaya mine near Vorkuta, as a result of a rock collapse, eight miners were trapped under rubble. Their fate is still unknown. Rescuers are trying to make their way to the trapped miners almost manually.

On Tuesday, a rock unexpectedly collapsed at one of the mines in Vorkuta (Komi Republic), leaving several miners trapped under rubble. According to news agencies, the accident occurred at 20.20 at the Severnaya mine of Vorkutaugol OJSC, located 12 kilometers from the city. According to rescuers, the rock collapsed at a depth of 565 m for an as yet unknown reason. At this time there were 154 miners in the mine.

Local mine rescuers arrived at the scene within an hour. They immediately began evacuating the miners, while the mine administration organized “ventilation” of the mine (methane gas pollution initially interfered with the search work). By 1:00 am on Wednesday, most of the miners – 146 people – had been taken out of the mine. Their condition did not cause concern among doctors. A little later, another miner appeared on the surface, working during the collapse of the rock. He had to be hospitalized: according to experts, he suffered moderate bruises and possibly a traumatic brain injury.

The fate of several more Severnaya miners remained unknown. “The most important thing is that there was no explosion, no fire, and this gives us hope that people are alive,” said the operational duty officer of the Civil Defense and Emergency Management Department of the Komi Republic.

Mine rescuers continued the rescue operation: manually and with the help of jackhammers, they began to build an emergency tunnel to the place where the miners should have been at the time of the rock collapse. Press secretary of Vorkutaugol OJSC Svetlana Tsarionova told the Interfax agency that four miners, two drilling rig operators and an assistant mine site manager were most likely trapped in a dead-end mine opening. As the work progressed, the searchers decided to make two additional workings to try to reach the miners in three directions at once.

By 2.00, searchers had cleared 7 of the 23 meters of rubble. Around the same time, a representative of the press service of the North-West Regional Center of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said that the miners, blocked in a dead-end mine, got in touch and reported that they were alive. However, later Svetlana Tsarionova denied this information, saying that the miners did not get in touch and by morning it was still not possible to contact them. In addition, she noted that it is possible that not seven, but eight miners remain in the mine. But the mine administration and rescuers still do not have accurate information about the causes and consequences of the rock collapse.

Now the emergency response headquarters is working on site, which includes the General Director of Vorkutaugol OJSC Alexander Loginov . Energy workers managed to restore the supply of electricity to the conveyor belt for loading the rock mass, which allowed them to speed up the work of clearing the rubble. Drilling equipment was provided to the searchers. 69 people are taking part in the work to eliminate the consequences of the accident: 29 mine rescuers and 40 miners.

In 2000, a fire occurred at the Severnaya mine. The administrative building, which was located in the village of the same name, burned down. Eleven people died then, including three women and a child. There have been no serious accidents at the mine itself so far.