Updated
Eleven people have been killed and nearly 40 are missing after a coal mine in western Russia collapsed, officials say.
Siberian authorities said another 40 were trapped inside the stricken mine near the town of Kabanalsk.
All workers had been evacuated.
Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) said a control room had been set up to monitor the situation.
“The location of the mine accident is 100% confirmed,” the MES said in a statement.
It added that the mine was not maintained with a safety ban.
The Kabilai coal mine was first closed to workers after around 35 people died in a fire in 1992.
Twenty years later, 11 miners were killed in a coal mine in the Kemerovo region.
The area around Kemerovo is a key area for coal mining and production in Russia remains high.
The latest mine disaster is the deadliest since November 2002, when eight miners were killed in a coal mine in Russia’s Far East.
According to the Committee on Human Rights, around 1,000 people died in Russia’s mines last year.
Mines there have been implicated in the death of at least 600 children in accidents between 2005 and 2014.
In 2015 the Kemerovo region was officially named the country’s deadliest for coal mining.
Reuters/AFP
Topics: coal, accidents, industrial-fires, disasters-and-accidents, russian-federation
First posted