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22 February, 2012
A deadly coal mine tragedy and two near misses occurred in Ukraine’s eastern coalfields over the past three weeks. The worse came on 6 February when a methane gas explosion rocked the Pivnichna coal mine near the city of Dzerzhynsk.
One 54-year-old pitman died instantly and seven others died from severe burns in the days to follow in the Donetsk burn centre. The Coal Mining Industry Workers’ Union of Ukraine (PRUPA) was taking stock of the gas blast and welcomed a Donetsk regional prosecutor’s criminal investigation of the tragedy.
The mine, operated with 136 workers at the time of the explosion, is owned by the state-owned Dzerzhynskruhillia company. In August 2010, a methane explosion killed two workers at Pivnichna and trapped several more.
Another mine accident happened a week earlier at a different eastern colliery. This occurred at the Rumaniantseve mine in Horlicka, Donetsk, and it trapped four miners. PRUPA said sound communication was made early with the trapped miners and rescue followed.
The other near miss came on 2 February at the Kalinin mine of the Donetsk Coal Energy Co. when a fire torched wooden carriages inside the mine. Seventy-three miners were working inside at the time, and the fire immediately trapped 22 of them. They were eventually all rescued from depths of 1,000 metres.
Ukraine’s government has officially put the number of miners killed on the job in 2011 at 161.