Sibernian coal mine suffers methane explosion

A methane explosion tore through a Russian coal mine where more than 200 people were working underground today, a regional emergency official said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the blast in the mine near Novokuznetsk in Siberia, said Valery Orchagin of the regional branch of the Emergency Services Ministry.

Orchagin said 217 people were working in the Yubileinaya mine at the time of the blast; 28 of them were in the immediate vicinity of the blast and the rest were in other parts of the mine.

An explosion at another mine in the region in March killed 108 people. That was the deadliest accident in more than 60 years in Russia’s mines, many of which fell into disrepair when government subsidies dried up after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Later reports have revealed that at least 145 miners were safely brought to the surface soon after the explosion in the mine according to Valery Korchagin of the regional branch of the Emergency Services Ministry.

Russian news reports said four of those brought to the surface were injured, but the severity was not known.