(Karaganda) The explosion in an ArcelorMittal mine on Saturday in Kazakhstan cost the lives of 42 miners, according to a new report from rescuers on Sunday, making this mining accident the deadliest in the history of this Central Asian country since the independence of the USSR.
The chances of finding the four ArcelorMittal group miners still missing alive were almost zero on Sunday, a day of national mourning in this immense country rich in natural resources.
This firedamp in the Kostenko mine in Karaganda (Center) adds to a long list of tragedies that have already occurred at ArcelorMittal’s Kazakh sites, and pushed the Kazakh government to announce an agreement to nationalize the local subsidiary of the global giant. steel.
According to an update from the Ministry of Emergency Situations at 3 p.m. local time (5 a.m. Eastern), “the bodies of 42 miners were found and four miners were still being sought,” while more than 250 miners were underground. at the time of the explosion.
The chances of finding survivors are, however, “very low”, the rescuers had warned the evening before, due to the lack of ventilation in the mine, the low autonomy of emergency respirators for miners and the power of the explosion, which spread over two kilometers.
And according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the search is complicated by the lack of electricity, the length of the underground tunnels, some of which are submerged, as well as the destruction of structures.
Immediately after the accident was announced on Saturday morning, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokaïev, ordered to “end cooperation” with the group.
In the presence of the victims’ families in Karaganda, he called ArcelorMittal “the worst company in the history of Kazakhstan from the point of view of cooperation with the government.”
In the process, the Kazakh government and the steel giant headed by Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal and based in Luxembourg announced a preliminary agreement to “transfer ownership of the company in favor of the Republic of Kazakhstan” .
The Kazakh subsidiary, ArcelorMittal Temirtaou, however, clarified on Sunday that it had signed this agreement “last week”.
“Every miner is a hero”
On Sunday, the flags with an eagle and a golden sun on a turquoise blue background of Kazakhstan were at half-mast for this day of national mourning, as in Karaganda, noted an AFP journalist.
PHOTO STRINGER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A flag of Kazakhstan at half mast in Karaganda
In the capital of this industrial region where mines regularly swallow workers, many residents marched to pay their respects in front of the monument in honor of the miners who died in recent years.
“Every miner is a hero, because he goes down without knowing if he will come back up,” summarizes Sergei Glazkov, himself a former miner.
“The best solution would be complete nationalization, without compensation for the current owner,” said Daniïar Moustafine, a 42-year-old seller, in front of this monument representing a slag heap, the face of a miner buried under coal as well as a woman holding a child with a miner’s helmet.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, around 200 miners have lost their lives in Kazakhstan, the vast majority at ArcelorMittal sites, with the deadliest accident until the Kostenko mine taking place in 2006, when 41 miners were killed in the Lenin mine.
The arrival in 1995 of the group in Kazakhstan, which operates around fifteen factories and mines in the center of the former Soviet republic, initially brought hope in the socio-economic slump following the fall of communism. .
But the lack of investment and insufficient safety standards were subsequently repeatedly criticized by authorities, while unions regularly called for tighter government control.
And this although ArcelorMittal assured on Sunday that it had “deployed numerous efforts to strengthen security” in recent years.