Seventeen miners are missing after the pit flooded Friday inside a diamond mine in Siberia owned by Russian diamond miner Alrosa, Russian officials say.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry says rescue workers have established contact with 134 of the 151 miners who were in the pit. The ministry says 133 people have been evacuated to safety.
The mine’s owner, the state-controlled Alrosa company, said in a statement the mine flooded after water burst from the quarry.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, middle, visits the Mir diamond mine, which flooded Friday after water broke through the quarry. (Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Associated Press)
No casualties have been reported, and there was no word from the Alrosa on the chances that the 17 miners could be rescued.
Dangerous water levels recorded before incident
Local media reported last week that mine workers recorded dangerously high levels of underground water and that the company had installed extra pumps to pump it out.
The Mir mine in Siberia is one of the largest diamond deposits of the state-controlled Alrosa company.
Alrosa is the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds in carat terms. Together with Anglo American’s De Beers unit, it produces about half of the world’s rough diamonds.
Shares in Alrosa were down one per cent in Moscow on Friday, underperforming a 0.5 per cent decline in the broader MICEX index .
The underground mine accounts for nine per cent of Alrosa’s rough diamond production of gem quality, analysts at BCS
investment bank said in a note.
