Moscow, Dec. 19 (BNA) – The Russian Emergencies Ministry said 128 miners were evacuated from a coal mine in Siberia on Sunday after fire sensors were activated, just weeks after an explosion in a mine in the same area killed 51 people.
Soik Coal, which owns the Ruban mine in Russia’s Kemerovo region, said sensors detected an increase in carbon monoxide emissions due to link heating, but it did not ignite and there was no fire, Reuters reported.
“Each of 128 people went to the roof, and there were no injuries,” the Ministry of Emergencies said in a statement.
Earlier on Sunday, Russian news agencies had reported a fire at the Ruban mine, saying there were between 128 and 139 miners underground at the time, citing the mine administration and emergency services.
Swick said work was halted in compliance with protocol after the sensors were turned on. She added that the ventilation system was working and gas levels were normal.
TASS quoted the Prosecutor’s Office as saying that checks had been carried out to find out why the sensors were triggered in the mine.
The co-owner of the Listvyazhnaya mine in Kemerovo, where an explosion killed 51 people in November, was arrested on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin in December accused the administration of falsifying methane data at the mine.
In 2007, the region was the scene of the worst mining accident since the collapse of the Soviet Union when an explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine killed more than 100 people. In 2010, explosions at the Raspadskaya mine in the region killed more than 90 people.
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