Fire breaks out at Ukraine's most dangerous mine (08/25/02)

Fire breaks out at Ukraine's most dangerous mine

21 miners hospitalized at Zasiadko mine in Donetsk region

by Ivan Poltavets
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - A series of accidents at the Zasiadko mine in the Donetsk region continued as a fire broke out at 8:50 a.m. on August 20 at the depth of 530 meters, when there were 1,680 miners underground. All of them were taken to the surface safely by 2:20 p.m., according to the Interfax news service.

"The fire was caused by the closure of the electric cable in the shaft. Electricity in the mine was shut down, ventilation was reversed and all of the miners were evacuated. Forty-five miners were blocked in the buckets, as it was the time of the shift change; 42 were blocked three meters below the surface, while three miners were blocked at the level of 817 meters below the surface," explained Gennadii Suslov, head of the Safety Monitoring Department for the Mining Industry, which is part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.

Twenty-one miners were hospitalized; five of them are undergoing treatment for suspected inhalation of combustion products.

The Zasiadko mine is considered to be one of the most dangerous in Ukraine. Out of 187 miners who died in accidents this year, 22 died in the Zasiadko mine. The death toll in Ukrainian mines was: 316 in 2000 and 294 in 2001, added Mr. Suslov.

The cause of the Zasiadko fire is still being investigated by a commission formed by state officials and the mine's management. The senior management of the Zasiadko mine suspects that the fire could have been cause by sabotage, as there was evidence of tampering in the shaft. These claims will be checked during the investigation by the Donetsk Procurator's Office and the Donetsk Security Service Department.

"Sixty to 70 percent of miners' deaths are caused by violations of safety instructions," said Mr. Suslov in commenting on the incident. Three factors lead to increased danger in the mines: difficult geological conditions, worn equipment, as well as the low discipline of workers and a disregard of production procedures. While first two factors are difficult or expensive to quickly alter, the attention of the Ukrainian government and mine management should be focused on the enforcement of safety instructions and improvement of work discipline, he added.

President Leonid Kuchma noted the poor safety record of the coal industry. "Safety procedures have always been financed on the what-is-left principle, and there was nothing at the end - so these are the results," Mr. Kuchma said according to Interfax.

Interestingly, a code of discipline for miners, which consisted of rules and punishments for their violation, was abolished in 1989 as a result of a miners' strike. Since the abolition of the code, the industry has seen nothing but deterioration of work safety. Earlier this year a new code of discipline was drafted and adopted in Ukraine, but it is less stringent than its Soviet-era predecessor.

"About 380,000 people in Ukraine are miners who work underground, and 35,000 are senior and lower-rank management. Generally, the management to worker ratio is high enough to ensure safety regulation enforcement in the mines," said Mr. Suslov.

The cause of the most recent tragedy that took the lives of 20 miners at the Zasiadko mine on July 31 once again was disregard of safety regulations. As reported earlier in The Ukrainian Weekly, the Procurator General's Office charged a deputy director and a blasting foreman with criminal culpability for "violation of safety rules in an area of high danger."

Ukraine continues to suffer various mine-related problems. Miners' salary arrears as of August 1 amount to approximately $223 million, according to the press service of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy. Thus, observers say, low motivation also may be partly to blame for the low discipline in the mines.

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