The explosion at an ArcelorMittal mine in Kazakhstan has left 46 miners dead, authorities said on Tuesday after the discovery of a final body, the worst industrial accident in this Central Asian country since its independence from China. Soviet Union.
“The bodies of 45 miners and the remains of the probable 46th victim have been found,” Kazakh Minister for Emergency Situations Syrym Sharipkhanov said during a meeting with the government.
Following the tragedy that occurred on Friday night at the Kostenko mine in the city of Karaganda (centre), the government and ArcelorMittal announced that they had reached an agreement to nationalize the global steel giant’s Kazakh subsidiary.
The Luxembourg-based group, led by Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal, has been regularly criticized by Kazakh authorities, citing failure to comply with safety and environmental standards and repeated accidents.
“The company has failed to fulfill its obligations. “We are finalizing the agreement on the transfer of ArcelorMittal Temirtau (name of subsidiary, editor’s note) in favor of Kazakhstan,” Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov said on Tuesday, without giving further details about the operation.
At the time of the explosion, the blast wave of which stretched over two kilometers, 252 miners were underground and 206 were able to reach the surface.
“This tragedy is directly related to workplace safety violations. “The blame lies primarily with the company’s management,” criticized the Kazakh Prime Minister, while trade unions are calling for greater government control.
Since the fall of the USSR in 1991, around 200 miners have lost their lives in Kazakhstan, the vast majority at the sites of ArcelorMittal, which were added in 1995 and operated around fifteen factories and mines in the center of this region.