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Court suspends Russia’s Ural coalmine, where 2 miners died in gas blast

The court has found the Dzerzhinsky coalmine guilty of an administrative offence - technological watchdog

KEMEROVO, January 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Court in the city of Prokopyevsk in Russia’s Ural Kemerovo region has suspended the Dzerzhinsky coalmine for 15 days, after two miners died in a methane blast on January 22 due to violations in industrial security, the Siberian branch of the Russian technological watchdog told Itar-Tass on Friday.

The decision was taken on the strength of the material of the watchdog. “The court has found the Dzerzhinsky coalmine guilty of an administrative offence. Coalmining was suspended at the mine for 15 days from the moment of the mine incident,” the watchdog said.

Gas explosion

The gas explosion went off at a longwall of the coalmine in the evening on January 22. A total of 105 miners were working in the shafts at the moment of the mine incident. Rescuers have brought 103 miners to the surface, two of them were injured. A 32-year-old engine driver and a 45-year-old miner died in the gas blast.

Smoking accessories and a box probably with narcotic granules were found on one of dead miners, who had been employed at the coalmine since January 13, 2014. The found substance was passed for a chemical expertise.

The Dzerzhinsky coalmine was opened in 1935. In May 2013 in the city of Prokopyevsk the interdepartmental working group had a meeting devoted to developing a complex program of shutdown of loss-making coalmines and resettlement of people from shabby housing in the Ural cities of Prokopyevsk, Kiselevsk, Anzhero-Sudzhensk. Coal extraction at the coalmine, where the gas exploded, will be halted in 2018.