Belaruskali Employee: Safety In Mines Comes Last

The method that has led to the tragedy in Salihorsk will be used further.

Miners Maksim Ivanou and Dzmitry Valkou, who died during the tragedy in Salihorsk, were buried. They died in the Belaruskali mine on March 9. According to Minsk region prosecutor Aleh Laurukhin, the exceedance of gas in that underground mountain area was 6-7%.

Public activist Aliaksandr Malochka, an employee of the enterprise, believes that everything will be blamed on the unfortunate miners, Belsat reports.

"There’s a difficult economic situation in the country. To fulfil the plan, the company has repeatedly violated safety regulations. And when it comes to fulfilling the plan in order to sell the fertilizer and get currency for it – the prevention of accidents is tenthly," – Aliaksandr Malochka says.

"At the Salihorsk forums people start to write in the comments that the miners start working using some new experimental method, which was developed by the deputy general director of Belaruskali. They went to where they mined ore in the 80s. It was not like that before – to work in a dead pit. It is not known why they forced people to go there, it's difficult to judge this. There is a high likelihood of gas accumulation in these abandoned mines," – Malochka says.

Our interlocutor believes that they will continue using the method.