Explosion in a Georgian-Ukrainian mine. The state and owners don't care
In the Tkibul (mining city of western Georgia) Mindeli coal mine, another explosion killed a miner, 52-year-old Chabuka Sopromadze. Eight more victims are fighting for life at the Tbilisi Burn Center.
The mine is owned by the company “Saknakhshiri” (direct translation: “Gruzugol”), the chairman of the board of directors is Mikhail Sotsky. In 2019, the Georgian-Ukrainian company SIT (Steel International Trade Company) became 100% owner of Saknakhshiri. According to other sources, this company is registered in England. The Coal of Georgia company, owned by the Ukrainian Ukrspetstekhnika (owner Ivan Makarov), also participates in the Saknakhshiri development project.
According to the government agency, the Labor Inspectorate, the work was carried out in violation of safety rules: the concentration of methane in the air at the time of the explosion exceeded the permissible limit. A mistake on the part of the miners is excluded - they prepared the area to be blown up and retreated to a specially designated safe place where the blast wave should not have broken through.
In contrast to the assurances of the company's mine manager, the most experienced mine operator Teimuraz Khachapuridze claims that the cause of the tragedy must be sought in the connivance of the security service. In his opinion, it was on her part that all the norms were not observed.
Khachapuridze’s version is indirectly confirmed by the absence of a technical manager during the blasting work, who should directly oversee the preparation of the process.
Such violations of technical regulations exclude proper and competent control to prevent emergency situations.
In all likelihood, lacking sufficient competence, the miners were unable to detect the increase in methane concentration in the air and carried out a planned explosion. This version is also confirmed by information about the malfunction of the sensors, which “turned red” with a delay.
Damaged equipment turned on after the fact, that is, after the explosion of the sensor; ineffective examination is part of the violations that the EMC organization (Human Rights Monitoring Center) spoke about after the explosion three years ago (April 5, 2018) in the same Mindeli mine. Six miners were killed and several more were seriously injured. Despite such losses, work in the mine was resumed without studying the admissibility! In July of the same year there was a new explosion, four more dead and several seriously injured!
But another side of the problem is also important here, namely the one that directly concerns the miners. Saknakhshiri resumed work, and the same miners began work. That is, they themselves agreed to once again expose themselves to daily and every second mortal danger without any improvement in working conditions and control.
According to our information, then the administration tried to intimidate the workers by announcing an ultimatum about their readiness to close the mine altogether and leave people without work!
On the one hand, this testifies to the acute need of the miners, which drove them underground both literally and figuratively. On the other hand, it demonstrates the complete lack of rights of miners in “European” Georgia.
But the German engineering and auditing firm then voiced recommendations for improving safety, also offering to involve the team. True, the miners were not even informed about the auditors' conclusions and recommendations!
The Germans then came to the conclusion that the underground infrastructure at the mine was in disrepair and extremely outdated. But the recommendations for correcting the most serious violations of labor safety were ultimately ignored by the owners.
In the fall of 2019, the new owner of Saknakhshiri, SIT (Steel International Trade Company), took responsibility for the re-equipment of the mines, and the Minister of Economy specifically focused on improving safety standards. However, in reality, things did not go beyond words. Moreover, according to the Center for Social Justice, labor in the mines has become even more dangerous.
According to the same Center, the Labor Inspectorate has never carried out a preventive inspection of labor safety conditions in the Tkibul mines, even after the aforementioned fatal methane explosions.
That is, neither business nor the state serving its interests have fulfilled and are not fulfilling their obligations, even in the face of a threat to the lives of workers.
It should be noted that, given the absence of influential trade unions and the purge of leftist forces in Georgia, only liberal NGOs and the media effectively respond to such facts. Surely the situation around the mine will also be taken into account by Mikheil Saakashvili’s party, which has recently been trying to actively exploit the social agenda. Although, we repeat, it was this force that initiated and carried out ultra-liberal reforms to please the West, which led to the current situation.
The Tkibul coal mines employ 1300 people. The Mindeli mine works in four shifts. The company produces over 100 thousand tons of coal per year. The basic salary for miners is a maximum of 270 US dollars. From 2010 to this day, 40 miners have died here. Over the years, miners have repeatedly struck to demand better working conditions. The most powerful performances of the miners of the city of Tkibuli took place in 2016. 1000 people then took part in the strike, attacking and occupying the company's administrative building. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia has never revealed the responsibility of senior officials of the Saknakhshiri company for accidents that resulted in the death of miners.
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