The head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, took control of the investigation into the tragedy in Krasnoturinsk

Severopeschansky rake

For the third time in the past five years, “emergency situations” have occurred at the Severopechanskaya mine, with people dying, but neither the owners of the enterprise nor the law enforcement agencies seem to draw any conclusions from what is happening – all underground tragedies are played out almost one by one and same scenario…

According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, a signal was sent to the dispatcher’s console that an explosion occurred at a depth of 318 meters, as a result of which several mine workers were injured. One employee was sent home after a medical examination, three were hospitalized to provide the necessary assistance in serious condition, and one miner, unfortunately, could not be saved.

As it turned out, the deceased was hired only at the beginning of March this year and was undergoing an internship.

“Why a tragic incident occurred with a recently hired employee, leading to such sad consequences, remains to be established during the investigation. Currently, the company has a specially created commission that provides full assistance to law enforcement and supervisory authorities.”— report in the company’s press service.

The deceased was 37 years old and left behind a wife and two young children.

Investigators are now looking into whether workers were given safety instructions before going into the mine.

Tragedies become a habit…

This is not the first tragic incident at this mine. In 2018, a miner also died here as a result of a collapse. The explosion then occurred on the horizon about 250 meters deep. Then, just as now, the Krasnoturinsk prosecutor’s office organized an inspection of compliance with security requirements. The family of the deceased was paid 2 million rubles…

“During the supervisory activities, compliance with safety requirements during mining operations, as well as labor protection requirements, will be assessed”promised the prosecutor’s office of the Sverdlovsk region.

On the fact of the death of the miner then there was also excited criminal case. In 2022 also happened rock collapse, resulting in one of the miners being seriously injured. Then they managed to save him, the prosecutor’s office “got excited” again and carried out an investigation, but it seems that no conclusions were made either after the first or after the second incident…

At least, we did not find any traces of messages on the Internet that any of the responsible persons at this mine were punished…

And again, a “special commission has been created that provides assistance to law enforcement,” “the most sincere condolences” were expressed to the relatives and friends of the deceased, and it was promised that financial assistance would be provided to his family in the near future.

Meanwhile, tragedies at the Kozitsyn-Makhmudov mines are, apparently, becoming a common occurrence. More recently, in the Amur region under the rubble turned out to be 13 miners, who, despite all the efforts of rescuers, could not be brought to the surface…

Was there a bomb?

With a request to comment on the situation with the increasing number of tragedies in the country’s mines, the Versiya correspondent turned to the chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) Alexander Sergeev.

Alexander Sergeev

The work of a miner is one of the most dangerous, this is recognized throughout the world, and, unfortunately, incidents and accidents that lead to death happen all the time. There are more than a hundred mines in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)—that is, industries in which mineral extraction is carried out using a closed method. Thus, in 2001, 106 people died in Russian mines, in 2010, when the tragedy occurred at the Raspadskaya mine, more than a hundred died, in 2017, 56 miners did not leave the face. Some years more, some less. But on average per year in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), 35–40 people die during underground mining of ore and coal. About half of all tragic cases are rock collapses. The human factor, of course, is present here too – somewhere they overlooked it, somewhere they didn’t calculate it, but still, “force majeure” cannot be discounted – anything happens underground, any miner will tell you this. But fifty percent of all deaths are solely the fault of those who organize and carry out the extraction of the rock. These are the owners of the enterprise, the management of the mine, and, of course, the engineering and technical personnel directly responsible for the work at a particularly dangerous enterprise.

In our case, of course, the investigation has not been completed, but it is already clear that there is a gross violation here – people were not in a safe place during the explosion. The fact that the deceased did not work in this mine for even a month also raises questions, that is, in fact he was a newcomer, a trainee. Why did he end up in a place where dangerous work was carried out, who sent him there? Was he properly instructed?

I don’t know what conclusions the commission will make, organizational and technical measures were not carried out properly, the technological process was organized incorrectly, people were not properly instructed… There was no mining supervision during this process.

How should this happen? Before starting blasting work, drillers drill wells, then a blaster comes with an assistant, lays explosives… The miners must be in a safe place at this time… Here, from open sources, again, we know that the explosion occurred during the laying of explosives. Who is guilty? Who made a mistake? Why was a miner there at that moment, whose task is to select the already prepared rock? During an explosion, the miner simply has nothing to do there. It is quite possible that the employer decided to save money and allowed insufficiently trained people to perform dangerous work.

I know that in those mines where mining supervision does not work “from now on”, as is customary in many dangerous enterprises, but when its representative can appear at the work site at any time of the day – even in the morning, even at midnight , the mortality rate is much lower. I have the following statistics… And where they save on salaries, on specialists, such things happen from time to time.

Under the control of the Russian Investigative Committee

Severopeschanskaya is the largest iron ore mine in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). 380 kilometers from Yekaterinburg there is an entire underground city with an area of ​​140 thousand square meters (for a minute, this is one and a half Uralmash – a district, not a plant of the same name). The mine goes down 530 meters, and the total length of tunnels dug underground exceeds 350 kilometers.

Let us recall that the Severopeschanskaya mine of the Bogoslovsky Mining Administration is part of the UMMC holding, the main owners of which are Iskander Makhmudov And Andrey Kozitsyn.

Today it became known that the investigation into the incident at the mine taken under the control of the head of the investigative committee, Alexander Bastrykin. Let’s hope that this time the incident will not go unpunished. Too many sad events have been happening lately at enterprises belonging to the UMMC holding.