63 dead after coal mine blast (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) -- A methane blast ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine early Sunday, killing at least 63 miners in the ex-Soviet nation's worst mining accident in years, emergency officials said.

More than 360 miners were rescued but 37 others remained trapped inside the mine -- one of Ukraine's largest and deepest -- with a raging fire hampering efforts to save them, officials said.

The explosion occurred around 3 a.m. (8.p.m. Saturday ET) more than 3,300 feet deep inside the Zasyadko mine in the regional capital Donetsk, the heart of the country's coal mining industry, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Authorities evacuated 367 miners. Twenty-eight were hospitalized, the ministry said.

Vitaliy Kvitkovsky, a miner in his thirties, was among those evacuated. He said he had to walk over the bodies of his dead colleagues to climb to the surface.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/18/ukraine.mining.ap/index.html

[Eugene]

1. 'No chance' for Ukrainian miners (70 dead, 20 missing) - BBC

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Monday, 19 November 2007, 23:31 GMT

'No chance' for Ukrainian miners

There is no chance of finding survivors in the Zasyadco
mine in Ukraine, a senior union official has said.

Rescuers are still searching for over 20 miners trapped
underground after the blast that killed more than 70 others.

But raging underground fires have thwarted rescue efforts
in the Zasyadko mine in the eastern Donetsk region.

-snip-

The head of the Ukrainian Free Miners' Union, Mihailo
Volninets, said it was now certain that all the missing men
had died, says the BBC's Laura Sheeter, in Kiev.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7101084.stm