Representational image
Kiev:
Seven miners were killed and two others are missing after a gas explosion ripped through an underground coal mine in eastern Ukraine, authorities said on Friday.
The blast happened before dawn on Thursday at a depth of 300 metres (1,000 feet), located in the eastern city of Kirovsk, the State Emergency Service said in a statement.
Officials said they were continuing their search for the two missing men.
Accidents are a regular feature at Ukrainian mines, most of which are located in the country's industrial eastern region, where pro-Russian rebels now control over a dozen towns and cities.
Many of them are underfunded and poorly equipped, and safety violations are rife.
In the worst accident of its kind in the country's post-Soviet history, more than 100 miners were killed in an explosion in 2007 at the Zasyadko mine, one of the three biggest in Ukraine.
The blast happened before dawn on Thursday at a depth of 300 metres (1,000 feet), located in the eastern city of Kirovsk, the State Emergency Service said in a statement.
Officials said they were continuing their search for the two missing men.
Accidents are a regular feature at Ukrainian mines, most of which are located in the country's industrial eastern region, where pro-Russian rebels now control over a dozen towns and cities.
Many of them are underfunded and poorly equipped, and safety violations are rife.
In the worst accident of its kind in the country's post-Soviet history, more than 100 miners were killed in an explosion in 2007 at the Zasyadko mine, one of the three biggest in Ukraine.
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