Mikhail Fediaev, a Russian coal tycoon weighing hundreds of millions of euros, was arrested after the accident at one of his mines in November which left 51 people dead, investigators said Wednesday (December 15th).
The boss of the SDS-Ugol group, as well as its general manager Guennady Alekseev, its technical director Anton Yakutov and the chief engineer of the mine Anatoly Lobanov were arrested on suspicion of violations of industrial safety standards and abuse of power, said the Russian Investigative Committee. “The investigators intend to request the placement in pre-trial detention of all those arrested”, he added.
Mr Fediaev, 59, is a prominent figure in the Kemerovo region of Siberia, where the mining sector is an engine of the economy. In 2019, the businessman was ranked 177e in the list of the richest personalities in Russia, with an estimated fortune of 550 million dollars (488 million euros), according to the specialized magazine Forbes. His son Pavel is also a member of the Kremlin Party, United Russia.
285 people were in the mine
On November 25, 51 people, including five rescuers, perished in the Listviajnaya coal mine belonging to SDS-Ugol. A firedamp, an explosion caused by a mixture of oxygen and methane, had likely caused the accident when 285 people were in the mine.
Accidents in mines in Russia, as elsewhere in the former USSR, remain relatively frequent and are often linked to laxity in the application of safety standards, mismanagement, corruption or obsolete equipment.
In October 2019, the rupture of an illegal dam at a gold mine in Siberia left 17 people dead. In the same month, three people were killed after an accident at a mine of the Norilsk Nickel group, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium, in the Arctic.
In August 2017, eight workers were missing after a flood in a diamond mine operated by the Russian group Alrosa in Siberia. The world’s largest producer of diamonds, Alrosa had announced the abandonment of the search after three weeks of relief operations.
Another accident left 91 dead and more than a hundred injured in the Raspadskaya mine, in the Kemerovo region, in May 2010. A firedamp blow occurred when more than 300 miners were underground. A group of rescuers dispatched to the scene had been trapped by a second explosion.