Coal mine explosion, fire kill 52 in Siberia, Russian officials say
MOSCOW — A devastating explosion in a Siberian coal mine Thursday left 52 miners and rescuers dead about 820 feet underground, Russian officials said.
Hours after a methane gas explosion and fire filled the mine with toxic fumes, rescuers found 14 bodies but were forced to halt the search for 38 others because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire. Another 239 people were rescued.
The state Tass and Ria-novosti news agencies cited emergency officials as saying that there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region of Siberia.
It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the Kemerovo region.
A total of 285 people were in the Listvyazhnaya mine early Thursday when the blast sent smoke that quickly filled the mine through the ventilation system. Rescuers led to the surface 239 miners, 49 of whom were injured, and found 11 bodies.
Later in the day, six rescuers also died while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine, news reports said.
Regional officials declared three days of mourning.
Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Demeshin told reporters that the fire most likely resulted from a methane explosion caused by a spark.
Surviving miners described their shock after reaching the surface.
“Impact. Air. Dust. And then, we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” Sergey Golubin
said in televised remarks. “We didn’t even realize what happened at first and took some gas in.”
President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the dead and ordered the government to offer all necessary assistance to those injured.
Biden’s health: The polyp removed from President Joe Biden’s colon last week was a benign, slow-growing but potentially precancerous lesion that required no further action, his doctor said in a follow-up memo.
The specimen, a tubular adenoma, was similar to one removed from Biden in 2008, Dr. Kevin O’connor, physician to the president, wrote in a memo released Wednesday by the White House. Routine surveillance, which normally calls for another colonoscopy in seven to 10 years, was recommended, he wrote.
The Mayo Clinic defines a colon polyp as a small clump of cells that forms on the lining of the colon. Most colon polyps are harmless, according to Mayo’s website, but some colon polyps can develop into colon cancer over time.
Biden, who turned 79 last week and is the nation’s oldest president, remains “healthy” and “vigorous” and fit for duty, O’connor said in his initial report after Biden’s first routine physical in office.
Pfizer vaccine: The European Union’s drug regulator Thursday authorized Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for use on children from 5 to 11 years old, clearing the way for shots to be administered to millions of elementary school pupils amid a new wave of infections sweeping across the continent.
It is the first time the European Medicines Agency has cleared a COVID-19 vaccine
for use in young children.
The agency said it “recommended granting an extension of indication for the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty to include use in children aged 5 to 11.”
After evaluating a study of the vaccine in more than 2,000 children, the EMA estimated that the vaccine was about 90% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in young children and said the most common side effects were pain at the injection site, headaches, muscle pain and chills. The agency said the two-dose regimen should be given to children three weeks apart.
The EMA green light for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and German company Biontech has to be rubberstamped by the EU’S executive branch, the European Commission, before health authorities in member states can begin administering shots.
New virus variant: A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that
scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province, Health Minister Joe Phaahla announced Thursday.
The coronavirus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.
South Africa has seen a dramatic rise in new infections, Phaahla said at an online press briefing.
“Over the last four or five days, there has been more of an exponential rise,” he said, adding that the new variant appears to be driving the spike in cases.
Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.
The World Health Organization’s
technical working group is to meet Friday to assess the new variant.
‘Afghan Girl’ evacuated:
National Geographic magazine’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” has arrived in Italy as part of the West’s evacuation of Afghans following the Taliban takeover of the country, the Italian government said Thursday.
The office of Premier Mario Draghi said Italy organized the evacuation of Sharbat Gulla after she asked to be helped to leave the country.
Gulla gained international fame in 1984 as an Afghan refugee girl, after war photographer Steve Mccurry’s photograph of her, with piercing green eyes, was published on the cover of National Geographic. Mccurry found her again in 2002.
In 2014, she surfaced in Pakistan but went into hiding when authorities accused her of buying a fake Pakistani identity card and ordered her deported.
Italy was one of several Western countries that airlifted hundreds of Afghans out of the country following the departure of U.S. forces and the Taliban takeover in August.
Somalia explosion: A large explosion outside a school in Somalia’s capital on Thursday killed at least eight people, including students, witnesses said. The extremist group al-shabab claimed responsibility for the attack.
The blast sent a plume of smoke above a busy part of Mogadishu during the morning rush hour. The blast shredded part of the school, with emergency workers looking through the collapsed roof beams and wooden benches.
Police spokesman Abdifatah Adam Hassan said eight people were killed and 17 others wounded.
Al-shabab in a statement carried by its Andalus radio said it targeted Western officials being escorted by the African Union peacekeeping convoy.