Nearly 30,000 people were left without power while coal miners were evacuated to the surface following a power station accident in Siberia’s Kemerovo region on Friday.
The regional electricity provider Rosseti Sibir said crews were working to restore power in the Leninsk-Kuznetsky district while investigating the cause of the outage.
At least seven coal mines experienced ventilation failures, and two towns were left without electricity, the regional Emergency Situations Ministry told the Interfax news agency.
The blackout affected at least 28,000 people, including residents of the town of Polysayevo. One hospital, five schools and 11 kindergartens were also impacted, state-run TASS news agency reported.
More than 500 miners were safely evacuated from three mines through emergency exits, the region’s acting emergency minister told Kemerovo region Governor Ilya Seredyuk in a video posted on Telegram.
Rosseti Sibir later said power had been restored to the coal mines and five of the district’s towns.
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