Fifty-one people have been killed in Russia’s worst mining disaster in a decade, prompting three days of mourning in Siberia’s Kemerovo region.
Among the dead were five rescue workers, although a sixth was found alive and taken to hospital in a serious condition.
The blast happened at the Listvyazhnaya mine when coal dust caught fire in a ventilation shaft last night.
Rescuers suffocated as they tried to reach dozens of missing miners.
At the time of the accident there were 287 people in the mine, some 3,500km east of Moscow.
Many managed to get out and 49 people were taken to hospital, some of them suffering from smoke inhalation. END.
