MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) - With the bodies of another five miners found at a mine in southern Siberia hit by fire on Thursday, the death toll has risen to 21, Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said Saturday.
A total of 64 workers were underground when the fire broke out in a shaft at the Vershino-Darsunsky mine in the Chita Region, five time zones east of the capital. The fire was likely to have been caused by a failure to observe fire safety regulations during welding work.
It is still unclear whether the four missing miners are alive.
Mines in the former Soviet Union have endured a poor safety record in the last fifteen years. Three miners were killed in a blast in another Siberian shaft in August and six men lost their lives in an accident at a Ukrainian pit in the same month.
