35 killed in mine fire; negligence is alleged (07/14/02)

35 killed in mine fire; negligence is alleged

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In yet another mining disaster - which have become all too common occurrences in Ukraine's most neglected industrial sector - 35 miners lost their lives on July 7 after a fire swept through a colliery of the Ukraina mine in the small town of Ukrainsk, Donetsk Oblast.

The mine's director and several lower-level managers were arrested and could face up to eight years in jail for negligent homicide if convicted.

The catastrophe occurred in the wee morning hours with a shift change under way and the mine filled with workers. Most of the 114 miners below the surface at the time managed to escape the mine, but 35 - some in an elevator and only meters short of safety - were not so lucky as hot flames raced upward from the 570-meter level where the fire began. Most died from the toxic fumes. Eleven miners were hospitalized, none with life-threatening injuries.

Because the fire continued to burn four days after the initial incident and temperatures hovered around 600 degrees early on, rescuers did not have access to the bodies and the source of the inferno for 24 hours. While the cause was still unknown, emergency workers and coal miners were speculating that a short circuit in a conveyor belt had caused the disaster.

On July 10 First Vice Prime Minister Oleh Dubyna visited the devastated mine and said that the shoddy conditions in the mine and the terrible work discipline were to blame for the tragedy.

"The deaths could have been averted very easily," he told reporters, according to Studio 1+1 Television.

Investigators are speculating that if certain workers responsible for safety had been at their work stations they could have easily extinguished the fire when it first broke out. According to Studio 1+1 Television, experts at the scene investigating the tragedy said they believed a bucket or two of water could have extinguished the blaze. Mr. Dubyna blamed the mine's management for a laissez-faire attitude to the mine and its workers.

The Ukraina mine has relatively new coal dust screens and ventilation systems, but the essential machinery that mines the coal and carries it to the surface is among the oldest in Ukraine, according to various news accounts.

Although an article in the Parliament newspaper Holos Ukrainy quoted Serhii Luniov, director of the Donetsk department of the State Department for Labor Safety, as saying that the mine met all safety standards for toxic and coal dust emissions, it also noted that two months ago, during a joint session of the Ministry of Energy and Mr. Luniov's agency, the Ukraina mine was singled out as the area's least safe.

On July 9 President Leonid Kuchma declared a day of mourning for the deceased miners, while Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh announced that the relatives of the deceased would be extended government financial support.

In his first words after setting down on Ukrainian soil, NATO Secretary General George Robertson expressed his condolences to the relatives after arriving at Kyiv's Boryspil Airport on July 8. Two days later, during a previously scheduled visit to Donetsk, he honored Ukraine's miners with a visit to a monument to their dead. There he explained that he knew well their plight and the plight of the families from his 21 years representing a mining region in the British Parliament.

Meanwhile, the Verkhovna Rada opened its weekly session on July 9 with a moment of silence in memory of the dead. Afterwards, the national deputies voted to donate a single day's compensation from their monthly salaries of 1,400 hrv. Because 34 lawmakers voted against such a proposal, each national deputy was asked to make his declaration with the legislative secretariat individually.

More than 3,400 miners have died in various disasters related to their work over the course of the last decade, according to Interfax-Ukraine. Citing a July 6 government resolution on a program of enhanced workers' safety in the mining industry, the report noted that there have been 702 underground fires, 38 coal dust explosions, 78 methane explosions and 1,400 cave-ins and avalanches in Ukraine in the last 10 years.

While Ukraine ranks 10th in the world in coal extraction, it is first in deaths, according to Interfax. Of the 190 working coal mines in Ukraine, 90 percent contain dangerous levels of methane and 60 percent exceed safe coal dust levels.

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