Bulgaria Buries 2 Mine Collapse Victims

Society | October 26, 2007, Friday // 00:00
Bulgaria: Bulgaria Buries 2 Mine Collapse Victims Seven months after a deadly blast in Oranovo mine took its toll on two lives, a collapse killed another two miners. Photo by Nadya Kotseva (Sofia Photo Agency)

Relatives and friends are to bid Friday last farewell to the two miners, who died after being buried under piles of earth in a mine near the south-western Bulgarian town of Simitli.

The funerals will take place in the victims' home village of Polena.

Vassil Blagoev was the first miner to be found by the rescue teams in a gallery in the Oranovo mine. His condition quickly deteriorated just minutes after he was taken out from beneath the heap of earth and doctors at the hospital in the town of Blagoevgrad could not do a thing to save his life.

The second casualty, Vladimir Velikov, spent several hours buried 300 metres underground. It was not immediately clear whether the man was found alive or dead.

This is the second time that an accident claims lives in Oranovo mine after two died and another seven were severely wounded in a blast at the beginning of March.

The Oranovo mine is one of the big lignite coals pits in Bulgaria, situated in the southwest part of the country near the town of Simitli.

Three geological formations were found to be present in the pit - from the Proterozoic eon, from the Tertiary and from the Quaternary. The coals that are extracted from the mine are highly vaporisable, which is due to the pit humidity - around 30%. They are also highly flammable.

The Oranovo mine was privatised in 2004 and was sold for BGN 950,000. The buyer is Balkan MK Company, whose owner is the 25-year-old Stanislav Tassev.

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