The head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations - RBC: "The country needs coal, but even more - live miners"

Acting head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Alexander Chupriyan told RBC what is happening at Listvyazhnaya, how to prevent forest fires, why the rescuers from Centrospas quit and why it is not firemen who should be blamed,and owners Alexander Chupriyan

“You can also smoke on a powder keg, but at the same time, cigarette butts must be thrown exactly into the urn”

- Vladimir Putin called the cause of the accident at the Listvyazhnaya mine a repeated violation of safety regulations. An excess of methane content was also the cause of the tragedies at Raspadskaya and Severnaya. How to avoid such accidents?

- Where technological processes are associated with risk, absolutely all participants must have an iron production discipline. In this case, constant honest monitoring of the concentration of methane in coal mines is required, and not the creation of its appearance.

In such industries, there is a whole set of objective control devices. And if people themselves turn them off or create artificial interference, then what do we want? This is a direct path to trouble, to an emergency. You can also smoke on a powder keg, but at the same time, cigarette butts must be thrown exactly into the urn, but not side by side. All participants in the process - from ordinary performers to management - must be aware of this.

— What is happening at Listvyazhnaya now?

“On Sunday, we found and raised the body of the last dead miner. We are no longer looking for people, but we are fighting for the mine itself. At a meeting with the families of the victims, we asked them: do you want the mine to continue working or are we closing it? Everyone unanimously said that the mine should work. In Kuzbass it is at the genetic level. The country is interested in this type of fuel, but the country is even more interested in keeping the miners alive. Now Listvyazhnaya is pumping out water: about 20,000 tons of it have accumulated in the mine. In addition, measures are being taken to restore the operation of mine equipment.