(Warsaw) Rescuers have located four of ten miners missing after a tremor at a coal mine in southern Poland on Saturday, management said.
Posted at 10:09 a.m.
Updated at 4:20 p.m.
“We have informed the families that we have located the four employees,” said Marcin Golebiowski, a manager of the Zofiowka mine, the scene of this new accident, adding that he had “no contact with these employees” at this stage.
According to a press release from the mining company JSW, after locating the miners, the rescuers had to withdraw for lack of “oxygen in their bottles”. The rescue of the miners will be continued by the following rescue teams, JSW said.
During a visit to the site, Polish President Andrzej Duda estimated on Saturday evening that there was “unfortunately a high probability that there will be deaths”.
Saturday morning, at 3:40 a.m. local time, a violent tremor occurred at a depth of 900 meters in this Zofiowka coal mine, accompanied by a major methane leak.
Of 52 miners near the site of the tremor, only 42 were able to return to the surface unscathed and twelve teams of rescuers were hired to try to find the others.
This is the second accident of its kind to have occurred this week in Poland, which still depends on coal for almost 70% of its energy.
On Wednesday, a firedamp explosion in the Pniowek mine, about six kilometers away from Zofiowka, and also belonging to JSW, left 5 dead and seven missing.
There was still no news of the missing when the rescue operations, deemed “dangerous” after several other methane explosions, had to be abandoned on Friday.
“Meticulous” investigation
Twenty people were hospitalized, including six for serious burns following this accident.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who visited the scene on Saturday, announced that the two accidents would be “verified very meticulously” to determine whether they are simple accidents due to natural causes or “whether errors have been committed”.
In 2018, in another accident at the same mine, five people died.
Poland has experienced other mining accidents in recent years.
In the latest, in March 2021, two miners died and two others were injured at the Myslowice-Wesola mine in the south of the country.
In 2021, the mining sector employed nearly 80,000 people in Poland.