Five miners feared dead in Kazakhstan
(Adds quote, changes source to ArcelorMittal)
ALMATY, June 2 (Reuters) - At least five coal miners were feared dead in Kazakhstan on Monday following an accident at an ArcelorMittal mine, the company said.
"At present five people are still missing," ArcelorMittal (ISPA.AS) said in a statement.
"Although rescue services are on site and every effort is being made to locate those missing, it is believed that tragically they have died as a result of the accident."
It said 95 miners were safely evacuated after the accident occurred in the early hours of the day at the Tentekskaya coal mine in Kazakhstan's industrial Karaganda region.
The Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said the miners were trapped as a result of a methane explosion. ArcelorMittal denied there was an explosion but did not say what caused the accident.
"...At present the company believes that there was no explosion, as has been reported early today," it said.
Kazakhstan has piled pressure on ArcelorMittal's local subsidiary over safety standards since a blast at one of its Kazakh mines killed 30 miners in January.
An explosion at another mine killed 43 workers in 2006. Two earlier blasts, in 2002 and 2004, left more than 30 people dead.
The company has said it was doing everything to protect its workers. A company source told Reuters last month it would spend $263 million this year to modernise its mines in Kazakhstan, a resource-rich Central Asian nation.
Mining accidents occur often in the former Soviet Union where safety practices tend to be less rigorous than at Western operated mines. Explosions in coal mines are most often the result of a build-up of methane.
On Friday, 17 miners in neighbouring Russia were trapped after a cave-in at the Lenin mine in the coal-rich Kemerovo region. Most of them escaped to safety, but on Sunday rescue workers found three of them dead.
(Writing by Maria Golovnina; additional reporting by Raushan Nurshayeva)
