Ten people are missing following a tremor in a mine in Poland on Saturday, the second accident of this kind to have occurred this week in this country which still depends on coal for nearly 70% of its energy.
“Rescuers are without contact with 10 people” who were in the Zofiowka mine (south), said in a press release the JSW company, which also owns the Pniowek mine where an accident caused the death of five people on Wednesday and where there was no hope for seven more.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the information about the accident “devastating”.
According to JSW, Saturday’s tremor occurred 900 meters deep at 0340 local time (0140 GMT) at the Zofiowka mine. It was accompanied by a major methane leak.
– 42 minors unharmed –
Fifty-two miners were near where the tremor occurred. Forty-two of them were able to return to the surface unscathed.
Twelve teams of rescuers were engaged in the relief action. According to JSW, they have to travel 2,300-2,500 meters to reach the place where the wanted miners are probably located.
In 2018, during another accident in the same mine, five people were killed.
Saturday’s accident is the second in four days in Poland.
On Wednesday, a firedamp explosion in the Pniowek mine caused the death of five people.
There was no news of seven others who were still in the mine as the rescue action deemed “dangerous” after several other methane explosions was officially abandoned on Friday.
Twenty people were hospitalized, including six for serious burns following this accident.
The analysis of the situation “led us to abandon the rescue operation carried out to evacuate the seven miners” who remained at the bottom of the shaft, Tomasz Cudny, president of the JSW group, told reporters on Friday.
Group officials said they recorded new firedamp explosions overnight from Thursday to Friday, which caused ten additional minor injuries among the rescuers who were trying to install a new ventilation duct at the bottom of the approximately 1,000-meter deep shaft. .
Poland, which still depends on coal for about 70% of its energy, has experienced other mining accidents in recent years.
In the latest, in March 2021, two miners died and two others were injured in an accident at the Myslowice-Wesola mine in the south of the country.
In 2021, the mining sector employed nearly 80,000 people in Poland.