Workers Find Bodies of 134 Yugoslav Mine Blast Victims

Rescue teams have found the bodies of 134 men killed in a weekend blast in a Yugoslav coal mine, and an official said Tuesday that the final death toll might be higher than the expected 170.

Regional mine inspector Rifat Konic said several women had called in to say their missing husbands’ names were not on a list of 170 miners released by the mine’s management.

“I’m afraid at least two or three names will have to be added to the list,” Konic said.

Rescue squads went into the Kreka pit near this central Yugoslav town for a third day. Officials said they have no hope of finding survivors of Sunday’s explosion 1,600 feet below ground, believed to have been caused by a buildup of methane gas.

Only one man who was in the pit at the time of the blast was brought out alive.

The sole survivor, Smail Imamovic, a 26-year-old driver of an underground train, was rescued from close to the surface Sunday. His face and hands were badly burned, but doctors said his life was not in danger.

The confirmed death toll of 134 made this Yugoslavia’s worst mining disaster in this century; 128 died in a 1965 accident in Bosnia-Herzegovina.