At least 39 die in mine explosion

MOSCOW — An explosion rocked a Russian coal mine yesterday, sealing a shaft with rubble and killing at least 39 workers. Rescuers were trying to free about 10 others missing underground.

Eight miners were rescued from the Taizhina mine after the apparent explosion of methane gas, said Valery Korchagin, an emergency department spokesman in the Kemerovo region. Four of the rescued miners were injured, and two of them were hospitalized with burns, he said.

Rescuers found the 29th body today, close to 24 hours after the blast, and 10 more bodies about six hours later, Mr. Korchagin said. About 10 miners remained missing. Bodies retrieved from the mine were badly disfigured, making identification very difficult, he said.

As the missing miners’ anxious relatives gathered in the mine’s administration building to await news, rescuers using shovels and crowbars tried to dig through from the adjacent Osinnikovskaya mine.

Kemerovo Gov. Aman Tuleyev, who was overseeing the rescue operation, said on Russian television that the shortest path to the blast site was blocked by what appeared to be impassable rubble. The ITAR-Tass news agency said the rescuers were trying to use a roundabout route that stretched three miles.

Mr. Korchagin said the rescuers were not using drills or blasting equipment, but confining themselves to working by hand to move the earth gently out of the way.

The blast occurred at a depth of 1,840 feet, and was believed to have been caused by a methane buildup, a duty officer at the Kemerovo regional emergency department said.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov ordered the government to form a commission to investigate the blast and sent Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko to the accident site, Interfax news agency reported.

According to the ITAR-Tass news agency, more than 600 miners work at the mine in the city of Osinniki, about 1,850 miles east of Moscow in western Siberia’s coal-rich Kuzbass area. It is a new mine, opened in 1998, but it was built on the foundation of a closed mine, and the equipment shown on Russian television stations appeared to be run-down.

Accidents are common in the Russian coal industry, and miners stage frequent protests over wage delays and declining safety standards.

In September 2002, one miner at Taizhina was killed and two were seriously injured when the roof of a ventilation shaft collapsed during reconstruction work, showering them with rocks.

An explosion killed five miners in the Kemerovo region in January. Another methane blast — possibly sparked by a short circuit — caused a ceiling collapse that killed 12 workers at another mine in the region last June.