Body count rises to 108 at Siberian mine as Russia mourns (Roundup)

Mar 21, 2007, 18:51 GMT

Moscow - The official number of deaths in Russia's largest mining disaster in years climbed to 108 Wednesday, with two miners still missing, as the country marked a day of mourning amid a series of recent tragedies.

With more than 600 rescuers on the scene of the mine, the bodies of 50 victims had been identified by early afternoon Moscow time and divers had searched half of the mines tunnels for victims, regional officials told Interfax.

An apparent methane-gas explosion caused the country's most lethal post-Soviet mining accident Monday, when part of the Ulyanovsk coal mine's rock face fell in on 203 miners working at the facility more than 3,000 kilometres east of Moscow in the Kemerovo region.

Flags flew at half-mast across the massive country and the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, observed a moment of silence Wednesday to honour the memory of those who died in a recent a plane crash and nursing home fire, in addition to the mine casualties.

Seven people had died in the weekend crash in Samara, a Volga River city of 1.3 million, and Tuesday's fire in a nursing home in southern Russia claimed 63.

Wednesday also saw the first two funerals of miners claimed by the tragedy. Vladimir Kiselyov and Konstantin Zenchyov were buried in the city of Novokuznetsk, not far from the mine.

'We never abandoned anybody in their suffering, and now our task is to bury (the victims) worthily,' Aman Tuleyev, governor of Kemerovo, said in remarks run by Russian news agencies.

The funerals were arranged by the mine's owner, Yuzhkuzbassugol, a subsidiary of steelmaker Evraz.

The reasons for the explosion remain unclear, and Russia's Federal Service for Technical, Ecological and Nuclear Control said it would take at least two weeks to determine what caused the accident.

'We will look at the possible technical reasons very carefully,' the service's head, Konstantin Pulikovsky was quoted by Interfax as saying.

He added that technical problems with equipment at the 5-year-old mine may have led to the methane explosion.

A spokesman for the mine's owner, Yuzhkuzbassugol, said Wednesday that the mine would return to use, although he could not say when that would be.