POLAND:Poland has begun three days of mourning after the worst mining accident in three decades left 23 miners dead one kilometre underground in one of the country's oldest coal mines.
Two sleepless nights after a gas explosion ripped through the Halemba mine, 80km from Krakow, relatives gathered at an impromptu shrine of hundreds of flickering candles at the mine entrance praying to St Barbara, the patron saint of miners.
Six bodies were recovered shortly after the explosion but the risk of another explosion from methane gas had prevented rescuers getting further into the mine.
Yesterday any final hopes were dashed with the final news: another 17 bodies found.
"Black, destroyed, deformed," said one shocked rescuer as he emerged from the mine.
"With a methane explosion like this I don't think they had a chance," said Jan Gaura, the soot-covered head of the rescue team, choking with emotion.
Jolanta Toczek lost her husband, Miroslaw. "He's worked underground for 25 years. We have three children. God, what should I do?" she said.
President Lech Kaczynski has ordered an investigation into the accident. Union leaders have accused the state-owned operator of the mine of placing lives at risk by subcontracting work out to companies with cheaper, unskilled miners. Poland's investment-starved state-owned mines have one of the world's worst safety records, with over 150 deaths in the last three decades.
The tragedy is the third to hit the Halemba mine in 15 years and the worst since a blast in another mine in the Silesia region killed 34 in 1979.
The mine was closed earlier this year because of methane buildup and the dead miners had gone down to recover expensive mining equipment left behind before the closure.