The former director of Halemba coal mine and the head of its ventilation department have been sentenced to two years in prison for their role in one of the worst mining tragedies in Poland’s modern history.
Twenty-three miners were killed in November 2006 at the coal pit in Ruda Śląska in Silesia, after an explosion of methane and coal dust. The incident was followed by three days of national mourning.
The miners, who were sent down to retrieve specialist equipment, became trapped over 1,000 metres underground when a corridor collapsed. An immediate rescue operation, heavily hindered by methane concentration, lasted for 37 hours, but rescue teams were unable to bring out any survivors.
12th anniversary of the tragedy at the Halemba mine. How much money is human life worth? pic.twitter.com/r3BQ4vVk0H
— Kuba Puchan (@zwiazkowie) November 22, 2018
Now, some 15 years after the tragedy, the appeals court in Katowice has issued a ruling. Both the director of Halemba mine, who can be named only as Kazimierz D. under Polish privacy law, and the head of the ventilation department, known as Marek Z., were sentenced to two years in prison.
According to prosecutors, the two men received, just days before the tragedy, reports of exceeded methane threshold values at the levels the miners were to operate in.
Hours before the explosions, they were also informed that the concentration of methane gas in the wall at which the miners were working was too high. Ignoring the threat, they decided not to withdraw the miners, but instead pressed them to intensify their work.
Prosecutors had sought prison sentences of seven and eight years for the two defendants, but the court decided that these terms were excessive in relation to their actions.
“The accused endangered the lives and health of miners,” announced the judge, Wojciech Paluch. “They were aware of the hazard and knew that the methane concentration levels were exceeded.”
“It is impossible to determine the cause of the methane blast and subsequent coal dust explosion, which resulted in the death of 23 miners. However, there is no doubt that negligence of the accused led to a endangering of life and the death of miners,” the judge said.
Paluch went on to say that the accused were aware of the hazard and knew that excessive values of methane concentration had been repeatedly recorded. A third defendant, Jan J, the main engineer of the mine, received a suspended sentence, reports Onet.
The 2006 explosion was not the first such event at Halemba pit, which has been in operation since 1957. A similar accident took place in 1990, claiming 19 lives and leaving 20 miners injured. Another methane explosion in 2009 at the Wujek-Śląsk mine, also in Ruda Śląska, killed 20 people.
Main image credit: Kris Duda/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
