(UPI) – The death toll from a fire and explosion in a Russian coal mine Thursday rose to more than 50 people as authorities opened a criminal probe into the incident.
The death count from the Listvyazhnaya mine explosion in a region of southwestern Siberia reached 52 people, including six members of rescue crews, a local official from the Belovsky urban district told Russian news agency Interfax.
The victims suffocated from carbon monoxide, the official said. The regional prosecutor has begun an inquiry on whether labor and industrial safety laws were followed while a government investigative arm has launched a criminal case, the agency reported.
