KYIV, November 15 – One miner was killed and another injured Friday when a coal layer collapsed in one of Ukraine’s most dangerous mines, emergency officials said. The accident, the third this week in Ukraine, occurred 1,050 meters (3,465 feet) underground at the Zasiadko mine in the eastern Donetsk region, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Rescuers managed to save one miner, who suffered bone fractures and was hospitalized, the report said. Zasiadko is among Ukraine’s most profitable mines, but experts say its managers have neglected to upgrade safety conditions and equipment, making it dangerous. Fifty-five miners were killed at Zasiadko by a methane gas explosion in August 2001 and 50 others died in a May 1999 accident.
In efforts to make the country’s coal-mining sector more profitable, the Fuel and Energy Ministry will take the first steps to privatize the mines next week, the Interfax news agency reported. The head of the ministry’s coal department, Mykola Krasko, said that just 80 of a total of 180 working mines are ready for privatization. The rest are on the brink of bankruptcy, the report said.
Ukraine’s mines are considered among the world’s most deadly. They contain high concentrations of methane gas, lack funds to modernize equipment, and see frequent violations of safety regulations. More than 230 miners have been killed on the job this year in Ukraine and some 3,700 have died since 1991.
