8 miners die, many others are injured: Terrible tragedy in the Soko coal mine

Photo: Nikola Tomic, Shutterstock

About 65 miners were rescued from the Soko coal mine in Sokobanja, while eight died. 20 were injured and they were taken to the General Hospital in Aleksinac.

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The director of the Aleksinac Healthcare Center, Rodoljub Zivadinovic, told RTS that eight miners were killed and about 20 were injured.

He stressed that these are mostly minor injuries.

"Several surrounding (healthcare) centers sent all the teams they could spare, some are being transported to the General Hospital Aleksinac," added Zivadinovic.

He said that there is no information on how many more miners were trapped. He also says that this was the Aleksinac shift, so most of the miners are from that town.

The Aleksinac ambulance service confirmed that they had sent four teams to treat the injured.

The accident happened this morning around five o'clock.

President of the municipality of Aleksinac Dalibor Radicevic said that he was on his way to Sokobanja, and that there was no precise information about the victims, but he confirmed that the accident had happened.

RTS is reporting that part of the pit collapsed and the miners got trapped.

TV Pink said that the rescue service from the Soko Citluk mine near Sokobanja reacted immediately. According to initial unofficial information, more than 7 or 8 people were without signs of life, unconscious and with limb injuries.

"There are also a number of people who were taken out of the mine, who were showing signs of life at that time and immediately taken care of by rescue services from the mine itself and health services that are active and operate at every mine. All on-duty teams were called to the scene, primarily from Aleksinac, I'm talking about the firefighter and rescue units and about ambulance crews from Aleksinac, but also from Nis.

All those on-duty services and teams are on their way to Sokobanja, that is, to the mine, where for unknown reasons, an explosion happened in the mine shaft and the soil collapsed. At the beginning of the rescue operation, those people who were closest to the entrance were pulled out of the shaft," Mladen Mijatovic told TV Pink.

(Telegraf.rs)