A police car and a fire truck in front of the Pniowek coal mine in Pawlowice, southern Poland, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. STR/AP
Officials at the Pniowek coal mine in Pawlowice in southern Poland, where several people died on Wednesday, announced on Friday, April 22, the cessation of the rescue operation, which it said was “dangerous” to the lives of rescuers.
They said they registered new firedamp explosions on Thursday night, causing ten more minor injuries to rescuers trying to install a new ventilation duct at the bottom of the well some 1,000 meters below the surface.
“Right now the area is dangerous to reach the miners down there,” said Edward Pazdziorko, vice president of the JSW Group, which controls the mine. Furthermore, according to Mr Cudny, “it would be an irresponsible decision to send rescuers to such a dangerous area”.
First you need to “stabilize” the ventilation of the area, and then isolate it from the rest of the mine. This process was a “matter of months,” emphasized the head of the rescue service, Piotr Buchwald.
Also read: Accident in a mine in Poland: several dead and missing after an explosion at a depth of 1,000 meters
Five dead and 7 missing
Two methane blasts on Wednesday killed five people, including a rescue worker, and seven are missing. Twenty people were hospitalized, including six with severe burns.
According to JSW, a first methane explosion occurred just after midnight in an area where 42 miners were working. A second explosion occurred a little later during the rescue operations and hit the rescuers.
Poland, which is still about 70% dependent on coal, has seen more mine accidents in recent years.
In March 2021, two miners died and two others were injured in an accident at the Myslowice-Wesola mine in southern Poland, while five others died at JSW’s Zofiowka mine in 2018. In 2021, the mining sector in Poland employed almost 80,000 people.