MOSCOW: Russian emergency workers on Monday ended a rescue operation at a mine in the country’s Far East where thirteen workers are presumed dead after an accident two weeks ago, state media reported.
A landslide on 18 March at the Pioneer gold mine in the Amur region close to the Chinese border pinned the miners more than 120 metres underground, according to AFP.
Initial search operations showed caverns, where they could have been sheltering, were flooded, raising fears the thirteen had been killed in the landslide.
Operator Pokrovsky Mine said in a statement that on 1 April, a decision was made to call off the rescue operation at the Pioneer mine. The results of the drilling showed the areas where the miners could be were filled with water and rock mass.
The lives of mine workers and rescuers involved in the operation are at risk of death, “due to the possibility of another collapse, it added.
The mine is one of the largest gold mines in the world and one of the most productive in Russia.
Officials in Amur have started a probe for a suspected breach of safety rules. The managing director was taken into custody last week, the regional branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, said.
Mine Accidents in Russia
Accidents at mines are relatively common in the country, where lack of safety standards and weak enforcement have been blamed for many tragedies. In 2021, an accident at a coal mine in Siberia claimed the lives of forty miners.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the termination of the rescue mission was “not good news”.
He told reporters that all the measures that could have been taken in connection with the situation that arose were taken. But the situation is what it is.
The regional governor said emergency workers had tried their best to save the miners and that the families of the miners would be given financial support.
