16 dead, nine missing after blast at Ukraine mine

An explosion at a Ukrainian coal mine killed at least 16 miners Friday and nine were still missing, the Emergencies Ministry said.

Three miners were also hurt in the explosion at the Sukhodilska-Eastern mine in the Luhansk region in the former Soviet republic's coal mining heartland.

"The cause of the blast is being determined," the ministry said in a statement.

Interfax news agency quoted a regional mining official as saying the explosion was caused by a concentration of methane gas inside the mine, where 252 people were working at the time.

The explosion in the early hours of Friday morning was the deadliest since 2007, when a methane blast at a nearby mine killed more than 100 people.

President to visit mine
President Viktor Yanukovich and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov planned to fly to the accident site, their offices said. Yanukovich ordered the government to set up a commission to investigate the blast.

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In a separate accident Friday, a piece of heavy machinery collapsed at a state-owned coal mine near the town of Makeyevka in the neighboring Donetsk region, killing one person and injuring eight, the Emergencies Ministry said.

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Ukraine has been plagued by accidents caused by poor infrastructure and lax safety regulations.

The blast-hit mine is owned by Krasnodon Coal, Ukraine's second largest mining company which is part of Metinvest, a firm run by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man and a sponsor of Yanukovich's 2010 presidential campaign.

In 1992, 58 people were killed in a methane explosion at the same mine. A fire broke out at the mine last month but no one was hurt.