Ukraine Mine Blast Toll Rises to 69

The death toll from one of Ukraine's deadliest mining disasters continued to rise today - with 69 people now confirmed killed.

Rescue teams said there was almost no hope of reaching a further 31 miners believed to be trapped after the underground explosion early yesterday.

Survivors at the Donbass colliery in eastern Ukraine said a methane explosion had turned the mine's 1,000-meter-deep (3,280ft) shafts into an inferno.

Officials claimed that at least 450 miners were working underground at the time of the blast, but 367 had been evacuated safely and 28 of them were taken to hospital.

Today, as the search for survivors continued, the city of Donetsk began three days of official mourning for the victims at the Zasyadko pit.

"The chances [of rescuing anyone else] are small," said Yuri Zayats, the head of Zasyadko coal mine's trade union council.

If no more survivors are pulled from the mine, the accident will be the worst colliery disaster in Ukraine's mining history. The country's coal mines, which date back to the mid-19th century, are already among the most dangerous in the world.

Miners recovering in hospital said their shift had begun normally, but suddenly there had been a tremendous explosion from an area where some workers had been drilling.

"Just before the explosion I checked the equipment and the sensors. Everything was OK," one miner, Vitaly Kvitkovsky, told Ukrainian TV.

"We were working in section 3. The accident happened in section 7. Suddenly I heard a 'plop'. The temperature rose sharply - so sharply you couldn't see anything. I put on my breathing equipment and found my way out by feeling the pipes and the rail lines. It took me about 20 minutes to escape."

Ukraine's prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, flew to Donetsk, in Ukraine's Russian-speaking industrial heartland, to assess the latest in what is a string of accidents to hit Donbass's delapidated mines.

Yanukovich, who comes from the region, said the fate of the missing miners was unknown.

"There is a blockage at the accident site formed by a cave-in, air shafts and water channels," Yanukovich said, after meeting a commission of inquiry into the accident.

"This is being cleared. Fire and smoke remain in section 14. The fire is still burning," he said.

President Viktor Yushchenko, the prime minister's longstanding rival, announced plans to visit Donetsk later today.

His office quoted him as saying that Yanukovich's government had "made insufficient efforts to re-organize the mining sector, particularly implementation of safe mining practices".

One miner was killed on Saturday in a cave-in at the Lenin mine, also in the Donetsk region.

Twenty miners were killed in an explosion in the same mine in 2002. About 80 were killed in another explosion at the Barakova coal mine in Luhansk in 2000.

Official statistics put the death toll in mining this year at 80, though independent trade unions say the figure is higher. Last year 170 miners died.