Miners demand to prevent ecological catastrophe in Gukovo

Today, 47 miners have held a picket at the "Antratsit" Culture House; they read out an appeal to Yuri Chaika, the Russian Public Prosecutor General, and started collecting signatures to it, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports. The Gukovo picketers demanded to take measures to eliminate ground depressions formed after mines are flooded, and prevent an ecological catastrophe.

"On January 23, at the site of the trunk of ‘Zamchalovskaya No. 2’ Mine, because of soil erosion with groundwater, the second ground depression formed in the mine vicinity; the area of the sinkhole is 7 by 7 meters, the depth is about 10 meters. If they have had proper projects for the liquidation (conservation) mines, this would have not happened (...). We live here and are concerned about the imminent ecological catastrophe," the miners wrote in their appeal to Yuri Chaika; the text is available at the "Caucasian Knot".

"A project of mine liquidation should envisage measures for preventing such sinkholes and groundwater outflow. However, nothing was done; they just flooded the mines," Tatiana Avacheva, a member of the miners’ initiative group, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.