All Polish miners confirmed dead
Thursday, 23 Nov 2006 10:23
Coal mining employs more people than any other industry in Poland
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All the Polish miners caught up in a gas explosion have been confirmed dead, the company they worked for has revealed.
The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, has promised a public inquiry into the disaster, which left 23 men dead in what is believed to be the country's worst mining disaster since 1979.
Rescuers had worked for two nights to try to reach the trapped men who were caught beneath the Halemba mine in the town of Ruda Slaska, which lies some 300km (190 miles) to the south-west of Poland's capital Warsaw.
Zbigniew Madej, a spokesman for the Polish state coal company, Kompania Weglowa, confirmed to the Reuters news agency that 23 bodies had now been recovered, adding that it appears all the men died at the time of the explosion on Wednesday afternoon.
Local TV station TVN 24 said the final body had been taken out of the mine at about 06:30 local time (05:30 GMT).
When the explosion occurred, the men had been in the mine to retrieve expensive new equipment from an underground shaft which had been left behind after the area was closed in March due to high gas levels.
The blast, which took place within the Silesia region, the heartland of Poland's important coal industry, prompted fresh concerns about safety.
Polish unions have frequently complained that a lack of investment has resulted in falling safety standards.
Including the latest to die, some 46 people have been killed by explosions in the country's mines so far this year.