Rescuers suspended efforts to reach seven people trapped in a coal mine in southern Poland, after methane gas explosions injured 10 of the rescuers in a shaft overnight, the crisis management team said on Friday.
Five miners were killed in the initial explosion on Wednesday, and 25 were hospitalized, according to JSW, the company that owns the Pniówek coal mine in Pawłowice.
The seven missing people were trapped in a shaft at a depth of around 1,000 metres (3,300 feet).
The rising concentration of methane underground had become too dangerous, JSW Chief Executive Tomasz Cudny told reporters.
"It's a very difficult decision," Cudny said after the rescue operations were suspended.
The rescuers were building a pipeline through which they were pumping fresh air down the shaft. When they were adding another section on Thursday evening, another explosion occurred. All ten rescuers managed to return to the surface, but three of them were in a serious condition.
The JSW also said that it might take months before another attempt to send men down the mine.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters, PAP