NOVOSIBIRSK, June 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's industrial safety regulator Rostekhnadzor said on Wednesday it will start a series of large-scale checks of coal mines in southwest Siberia from next week, following a series of major accidents.
The inspections, which will be unprecedented in terms of the range and number of specialists involved, will be conducted under an agreement recently reached between Rostekhnadzor and the governor of Siberia's leading coal mining province, the Kemerovo Region.
In the latest incident on June 8, seven miners received burns following a small blast at the Voroshilov mine in the town of Prokopyevsk, when explosive works caused a methane leak.
In another incident on May 30, five miners died at the Lenin mine in Mezhdurechensk, in the south of the Kemerovo Region, when a cave-in occurred.
