A coal mine in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast (TASS file photo)
DIGGING DANGEROUSLY: Below RFE/RL presents a chronology of the major Russian mine incidents of the last decade.
March 19, 2007: A methane explosion kills 97 people as it ripped through the Ulyanovskaya coal mine in Siberia's Kemerovo Oblast.
March 1, 2007: One coal miner is killed and nine are injured after part of a shaft collapses in Kemerovo Oblast.
February 25, 2007: One miner is killed after part of a shaft collapses at a coal mine in Kemerovo Oblast.
September 7, 2006: Twenty-five miners die in a fire at a remote gold mine in eastern Siberia near the border with China.
September 8, 2005: A methane blast at Anzhero-Sudzhensk in Kemerovo Oblast kills three.
February 9, 2005: An explosion in the Yesaulskaya mine in Kemerovo kills 21.
October 28, 2004: A methane blast at the Listvyazhnaya mine in Siberia kills at least 13.
April 10, 2004: A gas explosion at the Taizhina mine in Siberia's Kemerovo region kills 45.
October 29, 2003: Five miners are killed in a methane blast at a mine in the Far Eastern town of Partizansk.
January 13, 2002: At least five people die in a methane-gas blast at the Vorkutinskaya mine in the northern Komi Republic.
January 1998: A powerful explosion at the Tsentralnaya mine in the Arctic town of Vorkuta kills 27 miners.
December 1997: A methane-gas explosion rips through the Zyryanovskaya mine in the city of Novokuznetsk in western Siberia, killing more than 30 miners.
(Reuters)