Russian miner recalls long walk to survival

Miner Oleg Vishnyakov was on duty repairing a shaft wall 1,600 feet below the ground when he and three comrades heard the first blast Saturday night.

The sound, like that of a blown-out tire, was quickly followed by the roar of a huge explosion and a hot wave of coal dust.

“We never were in a serious mine accident before but knew the drill quite well,” Vishnyakov recalled in a low voice as he lay in a hospital bed in the Siberian town of Mezhdurechensk. “The urge to run to your safety was strong, but you shouldn’t run because thus you will spend your oxygen much faster. If you walk steadily at a moderate pace you could last for 35 minutes.”

The four men walked 2.2 miles, all uphill. It was the longest walk of their lives, but it placed them among the fortunate survivors of the Raspadskaya mine explosion.

As of early Wednesday, the official death toll stood at 60, and 30 people were still missing in the accident at one of the largest mines in Europe.

Vishnyakov, a 41-year-old father of three, watches television news each hour for word about his fellow miners. But he is sure about the fate of those not yet found.

“There is no chance they could stay alive,” Vishnyakov says during a telephone interview. “No chance at all.”

Some who survived the tragedy tell horror stories of how they stumbled over bodies on the way out. Vishnyakov talks of suffering a larynx burn after running out of oxygen and taking off his mask in the carbon gas-suffused shaft. He and his friends collapsed from exhaustion and carbon-gas poisoning as soon as they emerged. He regained consciousness in a hospital about 160 miles south of Kemerovo, the capital of the mining region known as Kuzbass.

Now the mine is a ruin and it may take months, if not years, to bring it back into production, Vishnyakov said.

But even if it is reopened, he doubts that he would return.

“God saved me this time and I got a nice and clear signal: It is stupid to die for $1,000 a month.”

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew Tuesday to the Kemerovo area, where he met with regional and federal officials and mine managers in Mezhdurechensk. Putin said that 1 million rubles, about $33,000, will be paid to families of the dead miners and asked prosecutors to conduct a thorough investigation.

“I just met with the relatives of the deceased and they asked a number of questions,” Putin said at the meeting. “These questions should be answered.”

Loiko is a Times staff writer.