Death toll in Polish mine disaster 23, no survivors

RUDA SLASKA, Poland, Nov 23 (Reuters) All 23 Polish miners caught in a gas explosion underground in a mine in southern Poland were confirmed dead today, in the country's worst mining disaster since the 1970s.

Rescuers had worked through two nights in a desperate search for the men, most of whom were in the pit in the town of Ruda Slaska, about 300 km southwest of Warsaw, to retrieve machinery.

''I can confirm that the efforts to rescue the men have come to an end,'' spokesman for Polish state coal company Kompania Weglowa, Zbigniew Madej said.

''We have found the bodies of 23 men. Everything suggests they died at the moment of the explosion.'' The death toll is the Polish industry's highest since a blast at another Silesia mine in 1979 killed 34, PAP news agency reported.

The miners were in a shaft more than 1 km underground in the alemba mine, one of the oldest in Poland, when Tuesday's blast occurred.

Poland's state-run mining industry, built up before the fall of communism in 1989 and starved of investment for years, has suffered hundreds of deaths over the last few decades.

(DISASTER INQUIRY) President Lech Kaczynski, who visited the mine yesterday, told reporters there would be a public inquiry into the cause of the disaster.

He said he had indications some of the miners were not experienced and not sufficiently qualified.

Family members waited patiently at the pit for news and were offered counselling by local doctors.

Michal Wasowski's son was among those caught up in the blast.

''I was once a miner myself. When I heard the news, my first thought was that my son is dead,'' said 55-year-old Wasowski.

''A methane explosion is one of the most horrible things that can happen underground and this time it happened to my son.'' The Halemba mine, in operation since 1957, lies at the heart of the Silesia region's industrial belt that has been the scene of several disasters. In 1990, 19 miners were killed in the same pit by a gas explosion.

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