DONETSK, August 18. /ITAR-TASS/. About 30 miners were trapped underground at a mine in east Ukraine’s Donetsk due to a power cutoff caused by fighting between self-defense militia and Ukrainian troops, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic’s press office reported on Monday.

The miners were trapped at the Komsomolets-Donbassa mine, the press office said.

“About 30 miners remain trapped underground. All measures are being taken to rescue the miners,” the self-defense militia said.

Security personnel from the republic’s fuel and energy ministry have been urgently sent to the area of the towns of Kirovskoye and Shakhtyorsk to “ensure the safe work of electricity specialists for restoring power supply at the Komsomolets-Donbassa mine,” the militia said.

This information has not yet been confirmed from other sources.

The Donbass fuel and energy company DTEK earlier reported that the Komsomolets-Donbassa mine had been fully cut off from power supply on Sunday evening due to artillery shelling and that measures had been launched to eliminate the emergency situation.

“An emergency brigade of seven miners was in the mine at the time of shelling to provide ventilation and pump out water. All of them were brought to the surface,” DTEK said in a statement.

The Komsomolets Donbassa is one of the largest mines in Ukraine, employing about 4,800 miners. The mine extracts 4 million tons of coal annually and accounts for 8% of Ukraine’s total coal output.