Kiev: One Ukrainian coal miner was killed and nine others were reported missing, feared dead, on Wednesday after a methane gas explosion in a mine shaft in the war-scarred pro-Russian separatist east.
The chief health official of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic said 20 workers were inside the mine when the blast occurred on Tuesday in an area some 40 kilometres west of the Russian border.
“Four are in hospital getting treatment for burns. We recovered one body and nine are still under the rubble,” Larisa Airapetyan told the official Lugansk separatists’ news site.
“The chances of finding them alive are slim — the gas accumulation is very high.”
The former Soviet republic’s industrial east has suffered from repeated deadly accidents in its loss-making and poorly-maintained coal mining sector.
Another methane gas build up in an accident-prone mine in the rebel-held city of Donetsk killed 32 people in March 2015.
Mine safety has been damaged further by a two-year insurgency that has claimed the lives of more than 9,300 people and left few resources for required maintenance work.
