Miners

Miners catch their colleagues pushed out by air from the Zasiadko coal pit in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk Monday, August 19, 2002. Twenty-one coal workers were hospitalized with inhalation of poisoning fumes caused by the blaze as a fire broke out in Ukraine's most dangerous mine.The fire broke out Monday morning after two cables broke on a lift some 529 meters (1,745 feet) underground at the Zasiadko mine. All 1,680 miners working at the time of the accident were brought to the surface and the blaze was extinguished within hours. The semiprivate Zasiadko mine is among Ukraine's most profitable, but experts say its managers have neglected to upgrade safety conditions and equipment, making it the country's most dangerous. Fifty-five miners were killed at Zasiadko by a methane gas explosion in August 2001 and 50 others died in a May 1999 accident at the mine. Photo by Igor Tkachenko / UNIAN