by Mikhail Lopato
RODINSKE, Ukraine, July 20 (AFP) - At least 31 miners were killed and five were missing after a gas explosion ravaged a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, in the country's deadliest mining incident in two years, officials said Tuesday.
Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev, said that 31 miners had died and five were still missing after a blast ripped through the Krasnolimanskaya mine in the eastern Donetsk region, Interfax reported.
Twelve of the 48 miners who were working nearly a kilometer below the surface when the blast occurred at 10:30 pm (1930 GMT) Monday were able to make it out alive, rescue officials had said earlier.
Dozens of rescue and medical emergency teams were searching for the missing men who the emergencies ministry said were unlikely to be found alive.
Tearful relatives of the missing men had gathered in front of the entrance to the mine, waiting for news of their loved ones.
"We still have hope," said Katerina Grobovska, the mother of a 24-year-old miner who is listed among the missing.
The rescue efforts were complicated by the fire that erupted after the explosion, with temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in some places, and by the fact that the mine's galleries had collapsed, Slovetsky said.
In addition to Klyuyev, Energy Minister Serhiy Tulub and Labor Minister Mikhaylo Papyev were also at the site of the incident.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich was due to arrive later Tuesday.
The prosecutor's office said it has opened an investigation into possible safety violations, which carry prison terms of up to eight years.
"Safety rules, especially those of ventilation, were constantly violated in that mine," Mikhailo Volynets, the president of the independent miners union, told AFP.
The government said it had allocated 2.5 million hryvna (470,000 dollars, 380,000 euros) to the families of the victims, the emergencies ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences over the accident, according to a statement from the Kremlin.
Monday's blast is Ukraine's deadliest mining incident since July 2002, when 33 miners died in a fire. In 2001, 55 died in a gas explosion.
Mining incidents, often causing heavy casualties, are frequent in Ukraine's cash-strapped mines, where security conditions are usually poor.
Ukrainian mines, which have been severely underfinanced since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, are along with those in China considered among the most dangerous in the world.
Some 100 miners have died in accidents this year, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported citing government statistics. Some 200 miners died in accidents in 2002 and nearly double the figure the previous year, according to official data.
As part of sector restructuring, the government, which controls nearly all of the nation's mines, has closed scores of mines in the country that each year produces an average of 80 million tonnes of coal.
Ukraine today counts some 400,000 miners, compared to the more than a million during Soviet times, working in some 180 mines.
Most of the mines still operating have not seen any upgrades in 25 years, ITAR-TASS reported.