Ukraine mine blast kills 10

DONETSK, Ukraine -- A gas explosion killed 10 miners and injured scores of other underground workers in a Ukranian coal mine, rescue workers said on Sunday.

The methane gas blast ripped through a shaft of the Kirov mine near the town of Makyivka on Saturday night -- the latest in a string of accidents in Ukraine's mining industry.

Acting Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko said the accident was of "sufficiently major scale" to warrant a full government inquiry, which will be headed by Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Dubinin, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.

President Leonid Kuchma sent his condolences to the families of the dead and injured, Interfax said.

Some 150 miners were working in the shaft on Saturday and 36 were caught directly by the blast, Viktor Ptakin, a senior rescue service official told Reuters.

Workers were brought quickly to the surface and taken to hospital for treatment for the effects of the blast.

Rescue workers said they had retrieved seven of the dead miners' bodies by early morning and were searching for three others known to have been killed.

Last year 306 people died in mining accidents across Ukraine, a former Soviet state of 49 million people, government figures show.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Investigators probe deadly mine blast
March 12, 2000

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