Methane explosion kills 39 in Donetsk, underscoring dangerous mining conditions (05/30/99)

Methane explosion kills 39 in Donetsk, underscoring dangerous mining conditions

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A methane explosion on May 24 at what was considered one of Ukraine's best mines has left 39 miners dead and 48 more injured - two of them critically.

The blast was another in a series that has racked the coal mining industry in recent years.

The explosion at the Zasiadko mine occurred at a depth of 1,050 meters at 4:09 p.m. while 551 workers were below the surface, 131 of them in the immediate area of the burst.

Emergency workers from the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts began pulling up the bodies of the victims nearly four hours after the explosion, a task complicated by the nearly three-kilometer underground trek that had to be navigated amid searing heat and high concentrations of toxic fumes, according to the Kyiv-based newspaper Den.

Of the first 35 dead miners pulled to the surface only seven could be immediately identified.

The Zasiadko mine, still partially government-owned, is directed by a group of leaseholders under the direction of coal baron Yukhym Zviahilsky, a former prime minister, who is a national deputy in the Verkhovna Rada.

Like most mines, it had been receiving little of the government financing that had been budgeted for it. But unlike other mines it had somehow managed to maintain its huge output of coal and regularly pay its workforce. More than 10,000 workers had annually brought 1.5 million tons of coal to the surface. This year the mine was exceeding targets, having mined its first million tons by April 30.

Nonetheless, the mine had been considered dangerous by government officials. Ruslan Pisotskyi, press secretary of the Ministry of the Coal Industry, was quoted in Den as saying that the mine often exceeded limits on methane gas and coal dust concentrations, but that it was no different than most mines in the region.

He explained that most coal veins in Ukraine contain methane gas pockets and explosions are a constant risk.

However, Dmytro Herasymchuk, the head of the Department of Coal Mining in the State Committee on Workplace Health and Safety, said the Zasiadka mine had all the proper ventilation technology, as well as experts who monitored methane accumulation levels. He explained that a sudden increase in methane concentrations would have been detected and neutralized immediately.

He did not say what he believed was the cause of the tragedy. That determination will be made by a special commission formed by President Leonid Kuchma on May 25.

The explosion was another in a growing number that have troubled Ukraine's Donetsk-Luhansk mining region in the last few years as mine conditions have worsened dramatically amid a lack of funding to maintain safety requirements.

Last year 358 people died in mining accidents, 63 on April 4 after a coal dust explosion at the Skochynskyi mine in Donetsk Oblast and another 24 at the Luhansk-Vuhillia mine in Luhansk Oblast on August 16. The cause of that explosion was determined to be a methane build-up ignited by a spark from excavation machinery.

Ukraine's worst coal mining disaster occurred in 1980 when 68 miners were killed in a methane gas explosion at the Horska mine in Donetsk.

Before the latest tragedy,110 miners had lost their lives this year.

The day of the explosion, President Kuchma declared May 26 a national day of mourning. That day he traveled to the region to attend the funerals of 32 of the miners in the cities of Donetsk, Makiivka and Yasynuvata. The president also visited the hospitals and burn centers where survivors are being treated.

President Kuchma has promised government compensation to the families of the victims and money to cover the costs of their funerals.

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