63 miners killed in gas explosion (04/12/98)

63 miners killed in gas explosion

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - While Ukraine observed an official two-day mourning period on April 6-7, friends and relatives began burying some of the 63 coal miners who perished in an explosion in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

On April 4 during a 10 a.m. shift change at the Skachinsky coal mine, located in the city of Donetsk, a lethal build-up of methane gas caused an explosion that buried at least a hundred workers.

Of some 260 workers who were in the pit at the time, 63 did not survive, 43 were hospitalized, 13 critically.

A half hour before the blast, which occurred at a depth of 1,200 meters, an alarm signal went off, indicating a dangerously high concentration of methane gas in the mine shaft. The mine is notorious for the methane gas build-ups that regularly occur. The alarm automatically shut down electricity, but minutes before the explosion energy was turned back on.

Nineteen victims were buried on April 6, the next day 39 additional victims were interred, and the remaining five on April 8.

Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko, who attended a liturgy for 11 victims on April 6 at the Kirov Cemetery in Donetsk, offered condolences to the bereaved families and assured them that "nobody will be forgotten," according to Interfax-Ukraine. He said that all necessary material and financial resources will be provided to the families of the dead and injured.

President Leonid Kuchma has ordered the establishment of a special commission to investigate the cause of the tragedy and appointed Vice Prime Minister Mykola Biloblotskyi as chairman.

On April 6, as flags flew above government buildings draped with black bunting, President Kuchma said on national television that officials in Ukraine's coal industry must bear responsibility for the sorry state of Ukraine's coal industry. "The tragedy has once again demonstrated the high price we have to pay for coal in the Donetsk basin," said President Kuchma. "It is an excessively high price for old problems in the development of the coal industry, which have accumulated for decades, as well as our inability to resolve them."

Minister of Energy Dmytro Herasymchuk told Agence France Presse that maintenance of the coal mine had been neglected because of lack of funds. "It's scandalous," said Mr. Herasymchuk.

President Kuchma said he wanted an open, honest investigation and warned against "reducing the investigation to a mere formality, a search for a scapegoat."

Minister Biloblotskyi, the head of the special commission, said the cause of the accident was a violation of safety regulations. "Methane cannot explode by itself; we will look into human factors," said Mr. Biloblotskyi.

But survivors of the blast and coal workers are pointing the finger elsewhere - at the government in Kyiv, which they say has failed to resolve their grievances and problems, including poor working conditions, low salaries and wage arrears. Oleksander Chirva, who was in the mine at the time of the blast, told the Kyiv Post: "The whole system is to blame."

Deaths, cave-ins and explosions have become common in Ukraine's coal belt, centered in the Donetsk region. Lack of funds to replace aging equipment has led to numerous casualties. Last year 290 coal miners died in accidents.

Many of those who died in the Skachinsky blast on April 4 were poisoned by the methane gas because their personal breathing apparatuses failed to work, said the Kyiv Post report. "We're not just sitting on a powder keg, we're inside the barrel of a gun and it's always about to go off," said Nikolai Galushko, a foreman at the Skachinsky mine.