Two employees guilty of flooding the ALROSA Mir underground mine were sentenced to two and a half years in prison in a penal colony, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta citing acting Senior Assistant to the Head of the Regional Investigation Department Anna Kolesnik.
Image credit: ALROSA
In addition, the acting Director of the Mir Mining Division Alexander Kisilichin and former acting chief engineer of this enterprise, Alexander Mann are deprived of the right to occupy management positions for three years.
The criminal prosecution of the third accused, the former head of the Mir underground mine, Alexei Burkser, was reportedly terminated in connection with his death.
The Mir kimberlite pipe was discovered in 1955 and then it was developed as an open-pit mine until 2001. The Mir underground mine was commissioned in August 2009 in the presence of Vladimir Putin, the then Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. ALROSA spent 22 billion rubles for the construction of the underground mine. Its capacity was 1 million tons of ore per year. The company planned to continue mining operations at Mir for more than 30 years. However, mining at Mir stopped in August 2017 due to an accident that led to its flooding, which resulted in death of 8 workers.
The damage caused amounted to more than 10 billion rubles. To compensate, the property and money of the accused were seized.
The court verdict has not entered into legal force.
Victoria Quiri, Correspondent of the European Bureau, Rough&Polished, Strasbourg
