(12 Mar 2000) Natural Sound
Relatives stood in silence on Sunday watching rescuers coated in coal dust drag up the bodies of 81 people killed in a Ukrainian mine explosion and load them onto refrigerator trucks.
A preliminary investigation has suggested that Saturday's accident was a methane explosion caused by a violation of safety regulations.
The miners' relatives waited outside Krasnodon's morgue to find out if their loved ones were among the victims of Saturday's blast.
While Ukraine has the world's highest coal industry death rate, the Barakov mine hadn't seen major accidents before.
On Sunday, a few grief-stricken miners wandered aimlessly among the crumbling premises of the mine while several rescue workers in dirty orange overalls packed their gear.
These are the last of the 33 teams who have worked since Saturday to pull the dead up from the rubble, some 664 metres (2,191 feet) down.
Officials said 80 of the 277 miners who were underground at the time of the explosion died on the spot.
Most of the others escaped safely.
One died Sunday in the hospital.
Seven coal workers remain hospitalized with wounds.
A handwritten list of the victims' names has been hung on a bulletin board at the entrance to the mine's administration building.
Later on Sunday, many of the victims' relatives gathered in the yard of the Krasnodon hospital.
They watched as medics pulled out stretchers loaded with bodies from three large refrigerator trucks and took them inside.
Local media have described the accident at the Barakova mine in Luhansk region, as the Ukraine's worst for at least two decades.
Miners, familiar with the site, say it was probably caused by lax safety procedures.
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