Rescue operations are underway at the partially flooded underground Mir Mine in Mirny, Siberia. In an accident Friday, the underground pit was flooded, with 151 miners underground at the time. According to Alrosa in an update released Friday and quoted in Rough & Polished, 142 miners were extracted, while operations are underway to rescue nine miners who are still trapped.
According to Alrosa, “the likely cause of the accident was an uncontrolled inrush of water due to a sharp deterioration in mining and geological conditions”. Alrosa President Sergey Ivanov added that Mikhail Lopatinsky, General Manager of the Mirny Mining Division, was suspended pending investigation of the accident.
Ivanov added that Mir passed “the General State Expertise and repeated examinations for industrial safety. The main mining operations have corresponded to the mine’s project design”.
On January, 2017, Alrosa announced that Mir mine has achieved its full projected capacity, and is expected to produce diamonds worth $400 million annually. Mir is located in Eastern Siberia, Russia and is the second largest excavated hole in the world, surpassed only by the Bingham Copper Mine in Utah. The first diamonds from the underground mine were produced in 2009.
