Officials announced the abandonment of the search after new gas explosions. Two explosions that occurred Wednesday in a coal mine had left five dead, seven missing and twenty injured.
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“Sending rescuers to such a dangerous area would be an irresponsible decision”. A search for miners missing after two explosions at a Polish coal mine has been dropped, mining officials announced on Friday (April 22nd).
Seven people were still missing after two methane explosions which also left five dead and twenty injured, in the mine of Pniowek, in the south of the country, Wednesday April 20. Tomasz Cudny, the president of the JSW group which controls the mine, explains that new gas explosions recorded Thursday and Friday caused ten additional minor injuries among the rescuers who tried to install a new ventilation pipe at the bottom of the shaft, deep in about 1000 meters.
“Right now the area is dangerous to conduct the operation to reach the miners downstairs”, said Edward Pazdziorko, Vice President of the JSW Group. First, we have to “stabilize” ventilating the area and then isolating it from the rest of the mine, but this process is a “question of months”underlined the head of the rescue services Piotr Buchwald.