Amid concerns that miners in Russia may not have enough redundancy and that they might be exposed to radiation, an accident at a Siberian coal mine Friday is set to make the country’s first tenuous pledge to provide payouts to miners recently killed in the crisis. Many are convinced that those who have been mired in a horrible series of mining accidents for three months have died in the accident on Friday, and that they are likely buried deep in the mine. As many as 10 people are reported dead and as many as 50 others are buried alive. Russia is one of the worst countries in the world for mining accidents.
Relatives of those missing believe the bodies trapped under coal, and that a disaster like this could have happened to them. Putin ordered his ministers to try to get to the mines soon and extract the bodies of the dead miners. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said the state would give a 7.5 billion ruble (about $130 million) pay out to the mining companies. That pledge has fueled outrage among miners at the first decision of this post-Putin era. Outrage also came from some locals who want the plan for compensation to not be slowed down in this crisis. Earlier this week, an effort to shore up the state’s rescue effort hit a roadblock, when workers halted repair work at a tunnel which they warned would be hard to dig and dangerous to work through.
Read the full story at The New York Times.
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