Climbers join rescue in flooded mine

RUSSIA: Professional climbers have descended into a gigantic Russian diamond mine to search for eight missing workers.

The men have been missing since flooding hit an underground shaft at the Mir mine in the Sakha Republic in Siberia, about 4200km east of Moscow.

The climbers abseiled into the mine, a circular crater that is 1250m across and 525m deep.

Two or three of the missing miners managed to communicate with rescuers on Friday when the crisis began, the Interfax news agency said, but there has been no further communication. However, Yegor Borisov, head of the Sakha region, said that ventilation and electrical systems were working in the mine and he was hopeful that the workers remained alive.

More than 100 miners were evacuated within hours of water surging into tunnels leading off the pit, which is operated by the statecontrolled Alrosa company. One man was taken to hospital with lung damage but his life is not in danger, according to officials.

The flooding came after dangerously high levels of water were recorded in the mine and the company brought in additional pumps to extract it, local reports said. A miner was killed last week by a rock slide at the pit.

The mine is a tourist attraction in its own right, and the air space above it has been closed for years after reports that helicopters struggled to escape being sucked into it by downdrafts.

Although the open-pit mine was closed in 2004, diamond mining at the site continues in a series of adjacent tunnels. Alrosa produces about half of the world’s rough diamonds.

The mine is in one of the world’s coldest regions, where winter temperatures can drop as low as -50C.

The last major mining accident in Russia occurred in February last year, when 36 people were killed as methane blasts tore through the Severnaya coal mine in the Arctic Circle.

Mir is the world’s second largest excavated hole after Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah. - The Times