The Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry said at least 37 injured miners were still being treated in Donetsk hospitals and that 12 are in serious condition.

The morning blast came as more than 250 miners were working underground at the Zasiadko mine, the largest of the Ukraine's 209 coal mines, in the coal-rich Donetsk region.

More than 50 rescue teams were called to the mine, battling a continuing fire, and firefighters are using a liquid nitrogen generating system brought from Poland. Extremely high temperatures more than a mile below ground had prevented rescuers from getting within 100 yards of the trapped miners.

One miner who escaped the accident unharmed described seeing "piles of bodies" while making his way to the surface.

Miners said that concentrations of methane gas at the time of the blast were more than three times the permitted maximum. Ukrainian miners detect methane using lamps, which are less sensitive than the methanometers carried by miners in the United States and many European countries, among others.

Deadly accidents have become almost routine in Ukraine's coal mines, where the death toll has averaged almost one miner killed every day for the past three years. Over the past 18 years five major accidents have claimed the lives of 228 miners at the Zasiadko mine alone. A total of 3,653 miners have been killed in accidents over the last 10 years in the Ukraine. This year alone, 181 miners have been killed.

Mismanagement, corruption, and chronic underinvestment in Ukraine's mines are widely blamed for the accidents, as is the practice of paying miners according to output rather than by the hour, when paid at all. Often, wages arrive months too late, and miners sometimes faint from hunger while working underground.

These were also the practices of the coal barons in the early days of mining in the United States. Long, hard-fought battles by miners and the unions won hourly wages and health and safety improvements. For example, the United Mine Workers forced changes in mine safety practices after the 1968 Farmington disaster in West Virginia that killed 78 miners. The victory of the black lung strike in 1969 and Miners for Democracy in the early 1970s brought more health and safety reforms.

Fred Higgs, general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Union (ICEM) said the Ukrainian government must "end this killing machine."

"We are angry that the safety of the coal mines in the Ukraine has been allowed to deteriorate over the past decade through neglect," he said.

Higgs also extended condolences to the families of the accident victims and pledged full ICEM support for the Miners' Independent Trade Union's (MITU) "efforts to promote a safe and caring mining industry." He called on the mine management and the Ukrainian authorities to cooperate with the union on this.

And, in reference to recent official harassment of MITU, he warned that "any attempt to suppress the union, its members, and leaders will be met with the full force of the ICEM."

Larry Quinn is a coal miner and member of the United Mine Workers of America.  
 
 
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