Four more persons involved in the explosion in the Listvyazhnaya mine were detained

President of the SDS holding (“Siberian Business Union”), co-owner of the Listvyazhnaya mine in Kuzbass, where more than 50 people died, Mikhail Fedyaev was detained. This is reported on website Investigative Committee (IC) of Russia.

According to the source TASS, a businessman was detained on Wednesday night, December 15. Now he is in a temporary detention center, investigative actions are being carried out with him.

Who else was detained?

According to the Investigative Committee, in addition to Fedyaev, three more persons were detained: the general director of the SDS Gennady Alekseev, the technical director of the company Anton Yakutov and the chief engineer of Listvyazhnoy Anatoly Lobanov. “Depending on the role of each, they were charged with committing crimes provided for in Part 3 of Article 217 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“ violation of the industrial safety requirements of hazardous industrial facilities, resulting in the death of two or more persons by negligence ”) and Part 2 of Article 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“ abuse powers in a commercial organization, which entailed grave consequences “)”, – stated in the message of the department.

As writes RBK, the Listvyazhnaya mine operates as part of the SDS-Ugol company, half of whose shares belong to Mikhail Fedyaev, and another quarter to Vladimir and Andrey Gridin. SDS-Ugol, in turn, is part of the Siberian Business Union holding, one of the founders and president of which since 2007 is Fedyaev.

What happened in the mine?

On the morning of November 25, a methane explosion occurred in the Listvyazhnaya mine. As a result, 51 people died, including five rescuers who went in search of miners. One of the rescuers, Alexander Zakovryashin, who was considered dead, managed to leave the mine – he went to the rescuers himself the day after the emergency. He managed to get out thanks to a stream of fresh air from the surface.

The daughter of Gennady Beloshkursky, who died in the mine, Ksenia restored the chronology of events by reading the correspondence of the surviving workers in the chat on her father’s phone, which he left among his personal belongings on the surface. In an interview with Lenta.ru, she said that when an explosion occurred in the mine, some of the miners were thrown aside, others lost consciousness, but there were also those who felt only cotton, but also could not get out.

On December 13, the body of the last victim was found, after which the Ministry of Emergency Situations announced the end of the search work.

On this fact, two criminal cases were opened and five people were arrested: the director of the mine, his deputy, the head of the section and two employees of Rostekhnadzor who checked the enterprise. As reported in the Investigative Committee of Russia, the defendants in criminal cases of negligence and violation of industrial safety refused to admit guilt for the tragedy.

At the same time, Fedyaev and Alekseev, who were detained today, previously announced to Russian President Vladimir Putin their readiness to be punished for the accident.

“Listvyazhnaya” after the accident

After the director of the mine, Sergei Makhrakov, who has headed it since 2013, was arrested, Andrei Khmelinsky, who had previously served as the head of the mine, was appointed to his position. The press service of the mine said that Khmelinsky, appointed director, has 30 years of experience. Recently, he held senior positions at SDS-Ugol, which includes Listvyazhnaya.

“The mine is not working for production, emergency and recovery work is still underway. Provide everything necessary for this – it [нового директора Андрея Хмелинского] the main task. The next stage is the preparation of the mine for operation, ”said the press service of the enterprise.

Violations

The miners who survived the accident and their relatives complained about the negligent attitude of their superiors to the fire safety rules at the facility, in particular the smell of methane. According to them, the miners a few days before the incident complained that their superiors forced them to go to the mine, despite the fact that the sensors showed an excess of the permissible level of methane, at which it is strictly forbidden to work. As a reward, the employees were promised good bonuses.

An anonymous employee of Listvyazhnoy, in a conversation with Lenta.ru, also said that the management of the mine had ignored the problem of increased gas pollution in the mine for years, and suggested that all dissenting employees “go out into the cold”. He noted that the employees of the mine rarely came into conflict with their superiors, since Listvyazhnaya was practically the only place where local residents could receive decent wages.

Mine worker Nikolai Alimov, in an interview with “Lenta.ru”, explained the silence of the miners about the constant violations by the fact that “the salary is good and you don’t have to travel far.” “It’s not easy to change jobs without losing your salary. There is nowhere to go, ”Alimov shared. According to him, the miner “cannot stamp his foot and refuse to work,” as because of this, the workers may face heavy fines.

The reaction of the authorities

On December 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on the situation in the coal industry of Kuzbass. During the meeting, he said that the reason for the emergency was the concealment of the facts of gas pollution in the mine. According to him, the results of the toxic gas sensors were falsified. The president also hit the table with his fist while discussing the disaster.

In addition, Putin said that overtime and conditions that force employees to risk their lives are the causes of accidents at Russian mines.

On December 14, Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Dmitry Demeshin proposed to prohibit the work of miners at great depths. He also introduced an initiative to introduce payment for downtime of miners through no fault of theirs in the amount of at least the average wage in the presence of a threat to their life and health until the risks are eliminated.