Fire traps at least 19 at Highland Gold Russia mine

MOSCOW, Sep 7 (Reuters) Fire broke out today at a gold mine in Russia's Eastern Siberia owned by London-listed Highland Gold Mining, trapping at least 19 workers underground, emergency officials said.

An Emergency ministry spokeswoman said 48 workers had been in the mine in the remote Chita region, located 5,000 km east of Moscow on the Chinese border, when the fire erupted at a depth of 85 to 135 metres.

Rescue workers safely evacuated 29 of them, she said.

In a conflicting report, Interfax news agency quoted officials at the regional emergencies centre as saying that 64 miners had been in the pit and 33 of them were still trapped.

Highland Gold, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, confirmed that the fire had broken out in the central shaft of its Darasun mining complex.

''The situation is complex and we are monitoring it every 15 minutes,'' a Highland Gold official said.

Chita's regional authorities said a severe fire broke out at 0945 IST as a result of welding work that violated safety rules. The fire was still burning.

Interfax quoted local officials saying rescuers were trying to bring the trapped miners to the surface through a horizontal tunnel to a second vertical shaft 5 km away from the scene of the blaze.

The Darasun mine, the smaller of Highland Gold's two main gold projects in Russia, produced 11,761 ounces of gold in the first half of this year.

Highland Gold has forecast total gold output this year of 180,000-185,000 ounces. The company is one-fifth owned by Canada's Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold miner.

REUTERS SP MIR BST1718