Siberian city buries dead after mine explosion

NOVOKUZNETSK, Russia, May 26 (Reuters) Over 100 mourners clutching flowers moved slowly through this Siberian coal-mining city today as Russia began burying the victims of its second fatal mining accident this year.

Relatives and colleagues held photographs of the dead as the regional governor declared a day of mourning and vowed that new management at the region's mines would improve safety.

Thirty-eight miners died in a methane explosion at the Yubileynaya mine on Thursday, only three months after a similar blast killed 110 people at a neighbouring mine in the heart of Russia's main coal-mining district.

''We need to fundamentally change the perception of those in the coal sector to get accustomed to minute-by-minute, uninterrupted evaluation of all risks,'' Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev told reporters.

''This must be a task for authorities at all levels and the owners of coal companies,'' RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.

Relatives carried coffins from apartment blocks to the street and retired miners joined the funeral procession. Russian television reports said 34 miners were buried today and four would be buried tomorrow.

The Kemerovo region is the hub of Russia's coal-mining industry.

Around 3,000 km east of Moscow, the area is a sprawling network of soot-stained industrial towns built around mines and steel mills.

The Yubileynaya mine and the Ulyanovskaya mine, scene of the disaster in March, are both owned by Yuzhkuzbassugol, whose collection of mines in Kemerovo region make it Russia's largest producer of coking coal for the steel industry.

More than 80 per cent of Russia's coking coal is mined in the southern Kuznetsk basin within Kemerovo.

Evraz Group, Russia's largest steel maker by domestic volume, yesterday agreed to buy the 50 per cent of Yuzhkuzbassugol it does not already own from the management, which to date has exercised operational control of the mines.

Tuleyev had earlier proposed such a move and today told reporters safety would improve as a result. Evraz already owns two steel plants in Novokuznetsk.

''I'm sure they will correct the situation at the coal company in the shortest time,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted the governor as saying.

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