PRAGUE – A blast at a Czech coal shaft killed 13 people, making it the country’s deadliest mining disaster in almost three decades.
The workers at the CSM mine in the east of the country, 12 of them from neighboring Poland, died after methane exploded about 880 m underground on Thursday night, said Ivo Celechovsky, a spokesman for the facility’s State-owned operator OKD.
One person is in critical condition at a hospital. It’s too early to tell what impact the accident might have on coal production, Celechovsky said.
In 1990, another methane explosion and a subsequent fire in the same area killed 30 workers.