tkibuli_mine

Coal dust caught fire in the Mindeli Mine in Tkibuli, a town in western Georgia. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Seven people were injured in a fire in a coal mine in Tkibuli on Monday. Two of them are seriously injured.

According to Tamaz Dolaberidze, head of the Metallurgy and Mining Industry Worker’s Trade Unions, coal caught fire at about 18:00 on Monday in the third industrial district in the Mindeli Mine in Tkibuli, a town in western Georgia.

The seven injured were in this district when the fire spread. One of the workers was hit by an explosion and received facial injuries.

About an hour later, methane gas ignited and the rest of the six workers were burned in the face and hands. Some of them were taken to Tbilisi for medical treatment.

“At this stage, I can’t say why there was a fire and whether it was possible to avoid what happened,” Dolaberidze told DF Watch.

The injured are Gocha Kublashvili, 49, Tamaz Putkaradze, 50, Tamaz Gabelashvili, 61, Gia Katamadze, 45, and Bezhan Chumburidze, 60, Vazha Kirkitadze, 58, and Malkhaz Bochorishvili, 48.

Chumburidze, head of the district where the workers were during the incident, has more difficult injures, while Bochorishvili a mine rescue worker, has difficult facial injuries.