SIBERIA: Russian rescuers yesterday used their hands to dig though the rubble of a Siberian mine shaft as hopes dwindled of finding any more survivors of a methane blast that killed at least 40 coal miners and left seven others missing.
The explosion ripped through the mine early on Saturday, as 55 miners who had worked through the night were nearing the end of their shift. The blast left a pile of rubble that blocked rescuers, forcing some of them to resort to a longer route to the epicentre through a neighbouring mine while the others tried to dig through the blasted shaft.
Eight miners were rescued from the Taizhina mine, said Mr Valery Korchagin, an emergency department spokesman in the Kemerovo region of western Siberia. Four men were injured.
Mr Sergei Oganesyan, the head of the Federal Energy Agency, who was heading the commission investigating the explosion, said 40 miners had been killed. Twenty-five bodies had been brought to the surface. He said it was "practically impossible" that anyone would be found alive.
A handful of rescuers, their faces grim and blackened, emerged from the adjacent mine saying they had been working with shovels and just their hands to clear the rubble. - (AP)