Only four months after Ukraine held a national day of mourning for 63 workers killed in one of Ukraine's coal pits, President Leonid Kuchma declared Monday, Aug. 17, a day of mourning for 24 miners killed in another blast.
The methane explosion in the 19th (Communist) Party Congress mine in the Luhansk region struck early Sunday.
Four miners working in the section of the mine where the explosion occurred survived and have been hospitalized with burns. A further 95 miners were safely evacuated from other areas of the mine. Five rescue workers have also been hospitalized for injuries.
Twenty bodies were recovered by Monday, while the bodies of four miners believed killed remained underground. Officials working at the site of the explosion said rescue teams would not be able to get through the debris caused by the blast to reach them before Monday evening, Interfax news agency reported.
A government commission has been appointed to determine the cause of the explosion.
On top of Kuchma's public condolences to friends and relatives, the government also rushed to allocate Hr 792,000 ($370,000) in compensation to families of the killed and injured miners, according to the presidential press service.
The 19th Party Congress mine has no great record for safety; a total of 55 lives were lost in similar explosions in 1953 and 1957. Nationwide, since 1992 over 2,000 miners have been killed working Ukraine's unproductive and increasingly lethal mines. Decreasing safety is blamed on lack of funds to update equipment.
The plight of Ukraine's miners grabbed the attention of the nation in June, when some 12,500 miners nationwide went on strike, including 1,000 who marched on Kyiv, to demand an average of 8-months back wages. The demands prompted one official in Luhansk to promise to pay back wages in chickens, vegetables and AvtoZAZ cars.
But despite wage arrears and rapidly declining safety standards, residents of Ukraine's depressed eastern regions have little choice of job other than in the mines. Mismanagement, corruption, and the government's refusal to close overmined pits have kept the industry starved of investment.
Sunday's accident brings the death toll in the coal industry so far this year to 264, some 20 fewer than died in all of 1997. In the worst accident this year, 63 workers were killed in a methane blast in April at a mine in the Donetsk region, prompting Kuchma to call a national day of mourning.
Both of the deadly methane blasts likely would have been avoided with standard methane-detection equipment, which Ukrainian mining industry officials say they can't afford.
Meanwhile, coal production has been steadily declining, from 200 million tons annually in 1992 to 50 million presently.
According to the Interfax news agency, Soviet planners allowed for one dead miner per million tons of coal. In Ukraine, that ratio is now at least four times higher.
