Price of the Black Bread of Coal
On September 7 First Vice Premier of Ukraine Oleh Dubyna presided over an extraordinary session of the board of the State Department for Labor Safety Supervision. The central item on the agenda was to find out what caused the latest accident at the A. F. Zasiadko Coal Mine. As is the rule at such so- called collegial meetings, after the chair made rather a laconic speech (the investigation is ongoing, a special task force is working, “the causes have not yet been finally identified,” but there already are certain conclusions, etc.), media people were politely requested to leave.
Clearly, the media people left the field of battle very reluctantly, and they still managed to hear the first report, studded with special terminology by Ihor Smolanov, rescue chief, on the course of rescue operations. Hitherto released information was confirmed: what caused the tragic accident on August 19 were two explosions of methane admittedly at the intersection of the 15th western wall and the belt gateway. It has been found that the first weaker blast went off in the wall’s upper part, while the second occurred in the lower part and led to such terrible consequences. According to Mr. Smolanov, the sources of combustion have not yet been identified, which means it is still too early to make any final conclusions about the disaster’s causes.
It is gratifying that nobody suffered in the course of rescue operations by 200 miners and 150 rescuers. Yet, Smolanov noted that if the mine had been equipped with all the necessary rescue systems, “the rescuers would not have had to lose time” and could have worked more effectively. Dubyna reacted immediately. “Check whether all the necessary equipment is available at the mines. If not, set dates for delivery and installation. If this instruction is not fulfilled, it is forbidden to work in the mines,” the first vice premier ordered.
It should be noted that the current situation at the place of accident is still dangerous. “The oxygen content is 2% and methane 90%,” the rescue chief said. In addition, the rescuers found red-hot smoldering coals which could cause new troubles.
When the next brief report on the tentative conclusions of an expert commission was finished, the journalists were asked more firmly to leave the session room. Still, it was then promised courteously that all those who wished would be invited to attend the second part of the session dealing with the more general problem of industrial injuries at Ukrainian enterprises. This suggestion was perhaps made because the third speaker was none other than Yukhym Zviahilsky, chairman of the lessee’s board at the Zasiadko Mine.
Moreover, this time some journalists managed to avoid the lot of their ousted colleagues and remained in the room. As one of them told The Day, Mr. Zviahilsky informed the audience that all the basic safety rules had been observed at the mine (incidentally, representatives of the State Department for Labor Safety Supervision are inclined to state the contrary).
As he put it, the mine has been refurbished with more up- to-date equipment over the past two years (it will be recalled that a methane explosion on May 24, 1999, claimed fifty human lives at the same mine). Zviahilsky said the mine had spent UAH 11.430 million “of its own money” during this time to ensure the safety of mining. Moreover, the people’s deputy claims, the mine cooperates with a number of R&D institutions in developing eighteen varieties of new safety technologies, annually spending about 1 million hryvnias on it. In his opinion, the accident occurred during in-service repairs (at this moment, indispensable in the process of mining, methane-monitoring instruments have to be switched off).
Meanwhile, The Day was told at the State Department for Labor Safety Supervision that the inspectors investigating the accident’s causes uncovered 428 violations, including 50 in dust and gas content observance and 31 in mining operations. According to Mr. Zviahilsky, “the bulk of them were rectified on the spot” in the presence of the same inspectors. “60 engineers and technicians have already received an administrative reprimand and another five have been dismissed,” he told Mr. Dubyna. At the end of his report, Zviahilsky denied allegations that the mine accident was caused by the race for results. He said that, although coal production targets were really raised from 1736 to 2800 tons, the work routine met all requirements. However, Mr. Dubyna disagreed, noting that the management should have raised, accordingly, the air purification indices. The first vice premier also emphasized that “he (Zviahilsky — Ed.) is lucky that there are no journalists here” (to whose presence, incidentally, Mr. Zviahilsky did not object).
The closed-door nature of the session appeared quite strange. Let the bureaucrats not be surprised at the plethora of rumors in the press. So far, the commission promises to announce its conclusions in late September.
(See also page CLOSEUP for “Coal Mine Explosions Can Be Prevented”)
