Siberian coal mine blast kills 38 people

By Andrei Borisov

YUBILEYNAYA MINE, Russia (Reuters) - A methane explosion killed 38 people in a Siberian coal mine on Thursday, weeks after 110 miners died in a blast at a neighboring mine operated by the same company.

Rescue workers halted their search, believing there to be no more survivors in the Yubileynaya pit in the Kemerovo region of western Siberia, emergency officials said.

Relatives scanned a list of the dead on a wall at the mine offices.

"They will start bringing the bodies to the surface now," said one woman with tears welling in her eyes. "They say they have identified everyone."

The blast ripped through the mine at 0740 Moscow time (0340 GMT) when 217 people were below ground.

Russia's industrial safety watchdog said its inspectors had twice applied to have the Yubileynaya mine closed for safety violations, including some in the shaft at the centre of the blast, but were overruled by local courts.

Miners with grimy faces smoked nervously as a soft drizzle fell on the rusting and dilapidated Soviet-era mine buildings, surrounded by wooded hills.

Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev declared Saturday a day of mourning in the region. President Vladimir Putin, on a visit to Western Europe, expressed his condolences.

The Yubileynaya mine, which opened in 1966 and employs around 1,000 people, is about 40 km (25 miles) from the Ulyanovskaya pit where 110 people died in March.

That was Russia's worst mining accident since the fall of the Soviet Union and triggered a government inquiry that pointed to poor safety standards.

Both mines are operated by Yuzhkuzbassugol, a company that is 50 percent owned by its management, which has operational control, and 50 percent by steelmaker Evraz Group. Yuzhkuzbassugol declined to make immediate comment on Thursday's blast.

Evraz should take control of Yuzhkuzbassugol, Tuleyev said in televised comments. Evraz shares closed down 1.3 percent.

Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Britain's Chelsea soccer club, has a 41 percent stake in Evraz through his Millhouse investment vehicle.

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Russia's industrial safety agency RosTekhNadzor said it had started an investigation and that Yuzhkuzbassugol could have its licenses to operate Yubileynaya and other mines withdrawn.