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Ukrainian miners to strike after 3 months without pay

© Vladimir VyatkinUkrainian miners
Ukrainian miners  - Sputnik International
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The miners of Yuniy Kommunar (Young Communard) coal mine, where an underground nuclear blast was held in 1979, are set to go on strike, the miners' trade union said on Thursday.

The miners of Yuniy Kommunar (Young Communard) coal mine, where an underground nuclear blast was held in 1979, are set to go on strike, the miners' trade union said on Thursday.

Coal has not been mined at Yuniy Kommunar since the nuclear explosion on September 16, 1979. The blast resulted in the creation of a chamber in which an estimated 95 percent of the radioactive material was sealed, and every day for the past 31 years miners have pumped water out of the mine.

Experts fear that if the chamber is flooded the radioactive material could leak out and contaminate the groundwater of the whole region and the head of the mine's main union said this danger meant the miners were continuing to work.

"But promises alone will not feed people. There are a few days left until a social explosion at the plant," Nikolai Kvach said.

The miners say they were last paid in April.

Several mines in Ukraine are struggling to pay salaries and campaigners are collecting signatures in a bid to push Ukraine's prosecutor general to start legal proceedings against the guilty parties and get the debt repaid.

The Ukrainian government last week stepped in to ward off the threat of strikes at two other Donetsk region mines. Miners threatened to stop pumping out ground water, a move that could have resulted in floods in nearby towns, but the government promised to pay off the back wages with money from its stabilization fund.

 

DONETSK, July 22 (RIA Novosti)

 

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