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Explosion occurs at mine in Sverdlovsk Region

One person died, two minors injured in explosion remain in moderate severity conditions

YEKATERINBURG, January 17. /TASS/. One person died in the explosion at the Yuzhanaya mine in the Sverdlovsk region, press service of the Urals regional centre of the emergencies ministry Vadim Grebennikov told TASS on Saturday.

“According to preliminary information, one person has died,” he said.

Spokesman of the local police Valery Gorelykh said 89 miners had been working in the mine, and 86 of them were evacuated.

The conditions of two minors who got injured in an explosion are of moderate severity, press secretary of the local healthcare ministry Konstantin Shestakov told TASS.

“A helicopter of catastrophe medicine will be ready to take off from Yekaterinburg if any of the patients require placing in hospitals of the regional centre,” he said.

The ministry says at first in the mine was a detonation, which was followed with a fire. The fire is extinguished. All the works have been stopped there.

The explosion occurred at 6:45 local time (4:45 Moscow time). The police received information at 8:53 local time (6:53 Moscow time), a regional police spokesman said.

According to preliminary information a fire began at the depth of 440 metres, and later on an explosion occurred there.

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case following explosion, Alexander Shulga of the regional department of the Investigative Committee told TASS.

“Experts of the Investigative Committee have left for the site. They inspect the site, question the company’s staff and management, study documents on explosion works,”  he said. The investigators confiscate documents at the Vysokogorsky enterprise, which owns the mine.