The Raspadskaya coal company has begun pumping out water from a West Siberian coalmine where some 90 people died in two explosions in May, a representative of the local government said.
The Raspadskaya coalmine in the town of Mezhdurechensk was severely affected by two explosions that hit the mine on the night of May 8-9. Sixty-seven bodies have been recovered from the mine so far and another 23 miners are still registered as missing.
"The pumping out of water began on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. local time [03:00 GMT]," the spokesman said adding that over 2 million cubic meters of water are to be pumped out.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expects the mine to be fully operational soon.
The Kemerovo region's governor, Aman Tuleyev, told Putin the coalmine could resume operations next month.
Putin urged the mine's authorities to have an "informal approach to solving the social issues" concerning the payments to the relatives of the deceased miners.
The accident is thought to have been caused by poor observation of safety regulations.
KEMEROVO, August 18 (RIA Novosti)
