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Putin mourns Siberia mine tragedy as hope fades
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Putin mourns Siberia mine tragedy as hope fades
AFP - 1 hour 16 minutes ago
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MEZHDURECHENSK, Russia (AFP) - – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Tuesday grieved with relatives of 90 people killed or missing in explosions at Russia's largest coal mine as chances faded of finding more survivors.
At least 52 miners and rescue workers are confirmed to have died in the double blast at the Raspadskaya mine in southwestern Siberia while 38 miners are missing, the local branch of the emergencies ministry said.
A strained Putin, his voice choked with emotion, visited the injured in hospital in the Kemerovo region and assured relatives the government would do all it could to help them.
The first methane gas explosion struck late on Saturday, leaving scores of miners trapped half a kilometre underground. The second blast struck hours later, cutting off the rescue workers who descended to look for survivors.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu admitted "there is less and less hope in the search for survivors" and so far salvage workers have only recovered corpses, including those of 19 fellow rescuers.
"The situation that you are in is so awful and tragic that no words of condolence are appropriate. And I understand that perfectly," Putin told the distraught relatives.
"But I want you to know that we are suffering with you. Everything that is the government's duty, including the payout of compensation, will be carried out."
Putin later visited the mine itself in the town of Mezhdurechensk, seeing first hand the blackened craters and burned-out wreckage of surface infrastructure left by the force of the blasts.
He called for a "painstaking" inquiry into the causes. The head of the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors, Alexander Bastrykin, also flew to the scene.
Rescuers were making a desperate final effort to find survivors in a network of tunnels hundreds of kilometres long, with a continued risk of further explosions in the gas-filled shafts.
The first funerals were held for the dead, with grieving loved ones laying their heads on the coffins of the dead to say one final farewell.
The tragedy risks becoming Russia's second deadliest mining disaster of the post-Soviet era after explosions at a different mine in the same region in March 2007 killed 110 people.
The missing men are trapped about 490 metres (1,600 feet) deep in the shafts at the Raspadskaya mine which has more than 400 kilometres (250 miles) of tunnels, a bigger network than the entire Moscow metro.
Eighty-four people were injured in the blasts, the emergencies ministry said. More corpses were found in the morning, bringing the death toll to 52, the local branch of the ministry said according to Russian news agencies.
Rescue work had to be halted throughout Sunday, with officials saying the mine was so dangerous that sending people in would be a virtual death sentence, but then restarted on Monday.
Officials have said the blasts could have been triggered by a sudden build-up of methane gas in the shaft. Putin said it was possible the first blast was caused by human error "including careless use of fire".
A criminal investigation has been launched for negligence of security rules but the mine's owners have insisted readings showed accepted methane concentration levels in the shafts at the time of the blast.
Raspadskaya is part-owned by steelmaker Evraz, a company 36 percent-owned by Chelsea Football Club's billionaire chief Roman Abramovich. The governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev, insisted that the mine would be rebuilt.
Shares in the Raspadskaya mine tumbled 15 percent in opening trade on the Moscow stock exchange.
Deadly mine accidents are relatively common in Russia because of ageing infrastructure, violations of ventilation safety requirements and tampering with gas-level monitoring equipment.
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