Relatives and colleagues mourn a rescue miner killed after explosions in the Raspadskaya mine, in the city of Osinniki in the west Siberian region of Kemerovo, Wednesday, May 12, 2010. Rescuers struggling through the blast-shattered corridors of a Siberian coal mine have nearly reached the last area where any of 30 missing miners could still be found alive with the death toll reaching 60.(AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)
The death count has now hit 60 from the two explosions that rocked a coal mine in the Siberian region of Kemerovo in Russia, and time is believed to be running out on any hope of finding the other 30 missing miners.
There are new reports out from Reuters, The Associated Press, and the Xinhua news agency.
Russian billionaire tycoon Roman Abramovich the owner of Premier League team Chelsea FC. He’s seen here with his companion fashion model Daria Zhukova at a UEFA game in 2007. AP photo by Matthias Zoening
Also, there is this interesting item from Billions, a Forbes.com blog about the world’s richest people, which reports the mine is partially owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich. Among other things, the blog reported:
Abramovich’s Millhouse bought a stake in Highland Gold, a UK mining company that operates the Russian Raspadskaya mine, in 2007 and later sold a portion to two billionaire business partners, Alexander Frolov and Alexander Abramov.
At the time we published our list of the world’s billionaires in March, Abramovich ranked no. 50 with a net worth of $11.2 billion. Only a tiny amount, less than $100 million, came from Highland despite the fact that he and his firm had been the largest shareholders.
These days he is well-known for his opulent lifestyle; he owns U.K. soccer team Chelsea, the world’s biggest private yacht, a personal jet and several homes. But the mogul actually comes from quite humble origins, as noted in our recent piece on some of the most notable self-made billionaires, Rags to World’s Richest.
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Mr. Abramovich’s Evraz is the primary owner of the Raspadskaya mine, according to Business Week. Although headquartered in Luxembourg, Evraz is apparently Russia’s leading steel producer, outpacing competitor Mechel OAO, which recently bought several coal mines in West Virginia.
“Linking workers’ pay to the amount of coal extracted”..
“Mr. Badalov, of the miners’ union, called the Raspadskaya “one of the most modern in the world,” and said its workers’ monthly pay, about $1,100, was high in the industry….Shares in the Raspadskaya Coal Company plunged 23 percent in trading in Moscow on Tuesday. Officials vowed to restore and reopen the mine, but said the work could take years.”
“Miners, on Internet forums and in interviews with Russian newspapers, offered a more prosaic explanation: that by covering methane sensors with wet rags or quilted work coats, they could continue working, increasing production — and their potential earnings — even as methane levels crept up….”
“Rich coal deposits in the Kuzbass region, about 2,000 miles east of Moscow, are accompanied by potentially lethal concentrations of methane. Mining companies balance these factors off one another, sometimes linking workers’ pay to the amount of coal extracted. Ruben M. Badalov, first deputy chairman of the Russian Coal Miners’ Trade Union, said this policy motivated workers at the Ulyanovskaya mine to block top-of-the-line sensors with wet clothing, which contributed to a 2007 explosion that killed 110….”
“It made things easier for management, because the workers became more motivated,” said Mr. Badalov, who was part of the investigative team in that accident. “Dangle a carrot in front of a donkey, and he begins to work for this carrot.”
Putin Suggests Human Error in Mine Disaster
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/world/europe/12mine.html?src=mv
Maybe gassy underground coal mines are not a good place to practice high stakes capitalism? It appears the culture of the Raspadskaya miners had unsupportable aspects of ‘risk vs. reward’. Apparently, the management of the mines played along with the ‘disable the methane sensor game’, and look what it got them in the end. I pity the miners families, life in Russia is difficult at best; each surviving family gets a one time check for $33,000.00 for the loss of their loved one.