Following the flooding accident at its Mir mine in Siberia, August 4, and the rescue operations still in process to find eight missing miners, Alrosa President Sergey Ivanov has signed an order providing for “a comprehensive safety assessment of all the company’s underground mines before September 1, 2017”, Rough & Polished reports.
An “ad hoc expert group” made up independent experts and Alrosa geo technicians, engineers, hydrogeologists and more, will assess “the possible impact of water bodies on mine workings and measures taken to prevent water breakthroughs from abandoned quarries”.
“The final and complete analysis of the causes of the accident at the Mir Mine is to be prepared by a commission of the Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service of Russia. Nevertheless, we plan to conduct our own assessment of the situation at all the other mines of the company without waiting for the conclusions of the commission, and in case of identifying shortcomings, to take prompt measures to eliminate them”, Ivanov said.
Earlier this week, it was reported that rescue operations were halted in a flooded area at Mir mine, where four of the still eight missing miners are thought to be located. The water level in the area where the four miners are thought to be was more than one-meter deep, “making it too risky for rescuers to get there”. Alrosa said it is too early to know whether the missing miners are dead since their location was “only approximate”.
