The reason for the second blast in a Russian coalmine that killed at least 32 and left 58 missing could possibly be from air that was pumped into the shaft after the first blast occurred, the mine's former energy chief said on Monday.
More than 70 people were also injured after two explosions hit the mine, near the town of Mezhdurechensk in the Kemerovo Region, in the space of four hours late on Saturday and early on Sunday.
"It's completely possible that something was smoldering somewhere after the first explosion and when they began pumping more oxygen, it began burning even stronger," Yury Olkhovikov said during a live interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station.
He said the first blast was probably from methane and that perhaps something had ignited, but added that "a methane explosion is less destructive than a coal dust explosion."
According to his information, the sensors that measure the concentration of methane were working, and the shaft after the first blast was still operable and almost all of the 300 miners had left the shaft. However, he said, "after the second blast, nothing of the shaft remained."
Olkhovikov said that as the mineshaft becomes deeper and deeper, more methane is produced. And the longer the shaft, the more difficult it is to "run air into the depths from the surface."
He added only the miners in dead end side shafts could have survived the second blast.
MOSCOW, May 10 (RIA Novosti)
