36 Dead, 14
Missing in Ukraine Mine Horror
A horrific gas explosion in a Ukrainian coal mine killed
36 miners
yesterday, and 14 others are still missing.
The Emergencies Ministry said the methane-gas blast tore
through a shaft
of the Zasyadko mine near the center of the eastern
Ukrainian city of
Donetsk in mid-morning.
Officials said 259 miners were underground when gas and
coal dust
combined and triggered the blast a half-mile
underground.
Rescuers' efforts were being hampered by fires and
scorching heat.
"The situation here is very difficult, the
temperature is rising, and
rescue workers cannot move forward," said Mykhailo
Klyagin of the
Donetsk Rescue Workers Center, adding that 52 rescue
teams were at work.
The tragedy is the second accident at the mine in the
past three years.
A 1999 blast killed 50 miners.
The former Soviet state has one of the worst
mine-accident rates in
Europe, due to aging equipment and poor financing.
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