An explosion Wednesday at a coal mine in troubled eastern Ukraine killed one miner, and the fate of 32 others is unknown, state media reported, citing the speaker of Parliament.
Speaker Volodymyr Groysman initially told Parliament that 32 miners had been killed in Zasyadko mine in the Donetsk region.
But he then corrected himself, saying that one person was confirmed dead and that rescuers were searching for 32 others, Ukrinform reported.
“I have updated information that the fate of 32 miners remains unknown. They are being searched for. The death of one person has been confirmed,” the news agency quoted him as saying.
Member of Parliament Olga Chervakova confirmed to CNN that the speaker had revised what he said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said one person was dead and 14 injured, with an unknown number still trapped underground, as of 9 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET.)
Yatsenyuk: Separatists are not allowing rescue teams in
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, speaking at a Cabinet meeting, accused the pro-Russian separatists who control the area of denying Ukrainian rescue teams access to the site, Ukrinform reported.
He urged Russia to tell the separatists to allow in the rescue workers.
“You took millions of Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhansk hostage and are now brutalizing miners’ families by not letting in help,” Ukrinform quoted him as saying.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also called for rescuers to be allowed in.
“I demand Ukrainian rescue workers and investigators to be granted access at the site of the tragedy,” he tweeted.
However, a representative of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, said Ukraine had not offered help with the rescue, according to the republic’s official news agency, DAN.
The Donetsk People’s Republic will ask Russia or separatist authorities in Luhansk for such help if needed, Pushilin is quoted as saying.
Donetsk and the neighboring Luhansk region are at the center of a months-long conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces.
A shaky ceasefire is currently in place in the region.
Blast ‘did not happen because of shelling’
Preliminary information indicates the explosion was caused by methane gas, DAN said.
“This did not happen because of shelling,” an emergency services official told the news agency.
The explosion occurred just before 6 a.m. local time, when there were 230 people at the mine, the official website for separatist-controlled Donetsk city said.
Of those, 157 were evacuated in the initial hours after the blast, including 14 injured and one dead, it said. Fifteen rescue teams are working at the scene, it added.
The website of the pro-government Donetsk regional authority said 50 people were 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) underground at the time of the methane blast. Thirty-two people are still missing, it said.
Ukrainian rescue workers are willing to help out in the operation in rebel-held territories, the regional authority added.
A methane explosion in the same mine in 2007 killed 101 miners. A similar incident that year left 52 more injured.