DONBAS COAL PAID FOR IN HUMAN LIVES
The Skochynsky Pit started yielding coal in 1975. Its annual capacity is 770,000 tons; main level depth: 1,200 meters; average 24-hour output: 2,200 tons; and work force: 3,500. This is also one of the most unsafe mines in the Donets Basin (Donbas, for short), because there is always the danger of methane accumulation and explosion.
Mykhailo Volynets, Chairman of the Independent Miners’ Union of Ukraine, says that 290 persons were killed in Ukrainian mines last year. In the first three months of this year Ukrainian coal claimed another 91 lives. Considering the situation, the government ordered several hundred million hryvnias, originally intended for the industry’s technical needs, paid as miners’ wages.
No previous cabinets could do anything to better the miners’ lot, despite many decisive-sounding declarations. The World Bank had to freeze its last loan installment for closing unprofitable mines because the Ministry of the Coal Industry failed to honor its commitments under the agreement.
Miners’ union leaders are very skeptical about both government efforts and international financial aid. Stepan Stefkivsky, shop steward at Pit No. 10, at Ukrzakhidvuhillya (Ukrainian Western Mining Amalgamation), made a statement that quickly spread among delegates to the 2nd Extraordinary Miners’ Congress late this March: “The World Bank pays only for closing mines, but even this money does not solve any social problems. Not a single miner from the pits already closed has been given a new job, let alone any other problems being solved. I have a feeling that the World Bank is not worried overmuch by what will happen to its money; I mean that this money is stolen almost as soon as received. No international handouts or much advertised efforts by our government have produced a single positive result.”
Simultaneously, viciously attacking the Cabinet, most miners’ leaders do not object to closures. They demand instead that all their miners be given jobs. Yesterday, while in Donetsk, Premier Pustovoitenko promised that “all further mine closings will include arrangements for job placement, to be made before closing each pit.” He declared that the next Cabinet session would discuss the creation of two special economic zones in Donetsk Oblast, along with soft investor taxes levied on 16 regional centers.
In the twilight years of the USSR coal deposits in the Donbas were almost exhausted at comparatively accessible depths. The Soviet government pronounced the basin unprofitable and sharply reduced subsidies for mines and the entire industrial region. Precisely when the Skochynsky Pit was made ready to operate as one of the world’s deepest, with lower levels reaching to 1,380 meters.
Several years ago Donbas scientists developed and tested a pit gas extraction system providing for its further commercial usage, but serial output was impossible for want of funds. Experts believe that large-scale methane extraction would not only produce additional inexpensive energy, but also reduce the danger of sudden explosions down in the pits.
