MOSCOW, April 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Three workers died in an explosion at the Gaisky Mining and Processing Plant in western Russia’s Orenburg region, the regional prosecutor’s office reported Saturday.
The explosion occurred at a depth of 1.2 km, and the remaining 88 workers were evacuated, the office said.
Preliminary information suggests the explosion was caused by a violation of safety regulations during mining and blasting.
“The incident at the Gaisky mining and processing plant occurred at about 08:50 am (local time), during mining and blasting, an emergency detonation of an explosive occurred at a depth of 1.2 km. 88 workers were evacuated,” the statement by the regional prosecutor Ruslan Medvedev informed.
The Gaisky copper and zinc mine and mill complex, one of Russia’s largest copper mines, is owned by the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company holding. It is located at the far southern tip of the Ural mountains near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan.
Russia is the world’s sixth-largest coal producer and has had frequent coal mine disasters linked to a lackadaisical attitude on part of the government’s proposed safety protocols.
In 2007, nearly 106 people died in a gas explosion at the Ulyanovskaya coal mine in Siberia, which was described as Russia’s worst mining disaster since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Just before midnight on May 8, 2010 witnessed the deadly Raspadskaya mine explosion. With 32 confirmed deaths and 58 miners and rescuers trapped underground, the death toll is feared to be 90 in a Siberian mine disaster.
In 2016, a series of methane explosions at a mine near the northern town of Vorkuta had similarly claimed 36 lives. — NNN-AGENCIES
