KARAGANDA: Kazakhstan said Saturday that 32 people died in a fire in yet another deadly accident at a mine owned by ArcelorMittal, with over a dozen still missing, in the Central Asian country’s worst disaster in years. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called the Luxembourg-listed steel and mining giant the “worst” company “in our history” while the firm announced a preliminary deal on the nationalization of its local operations.

Tokayev had earlier ordered his government to take control of the Kazakh branch of the company. “ArcelorMittal can confirm that the two parties have ... recently signed a preliminary agreement for a transaction that will transfer ownership to the Republic of Kazakhstan,” the global steel giant said in a statement.

At the mine, emergency workers comforted local community members, especially women, as they waited anxiously for news of those who had been working below the surface. Dozens gathered in a waiting room, some with their heads in their hands and all looking anxious.

ArcelorMittal, led by Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal, has a history of deadly disasters in Kazakhstan and is regularly accused of failing to respect safety and environmental regulations. The fire was one of the deadliest in Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet history and came just two months after five miners were killed in a blast at a site owned by the company. “At the Kostenko mine as of four pm (1000 GMT) the bodies of 32 people have been found,” the emergency situations ministry said in a statement. “The search for 14 miners is continuing.”

“This is a tragedy,” Tokayev said as he met with families of the victims in the Karaganda region. He called for a day of national mourning on Sunday. “This company has turned out to be the worst in our history from the point of view of cooperation between a company and the government,” Tokayev said.

He asked the deputy governor of the Karaganda region, Vadim Basin, who used to work for ArcelorMittal, to head the company. “The current management of the company cannot do anything,” he added. No cause of the accident had been announced, with Tokayev saying an investigative commission would be set up.

Five deadly accidents in a year

The fire was Kazakhstan’s worst mining accident since 2006, when 41 miners died at an ArcelorMittal site, and came two months after five miners were killed in a blast this summer. There have been five other deadly accidents at ArcelorMittal in Kazakhstan since November last year, resulting in a total of 12 deaths. Ambulances and police entered the mine compound on Saturday, an AFP reporter saw.

ArcelorMittal promised compensation and said it would cooperate with authorities. “Our efforts are aimed at that (compensation) and on the tight cooperation with state authorities,” it said. Officials said 18 people had been hospitalized after the fire. “Fifteen of them are in the toxicology department with carbon monoxide poisoning,” said regional health department head Bibigul Tulegenova.

Putin sends condolences

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to his Kazakh ally. “Please convey words of sympathy and support to the families of the killed miners,” Putin said in a statement. “We hope the miners that are underground will be saved.”

After the fire at an ArcelorMittal coal mine in August, Tokayev denounced the “systemic character” of accidents involving the company that he said had left more than 100 people dead since 2006. ArcelorMittal operates around a dozen mines in the highly polluted industrial region of the vast, resource-rich nation, formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Extraction of iron and coal as well as oil, gas and uranium have made its economy the largest in Central Asia, though accidents are common because of ageing infrastructure and equipment and lax safety standards. In December 2022, the government had threatened to ban ArcelorMittal from operating in the country after a worker died in what the company called “an accident” at its factory in Temirtau. The death came just a month after five miners were killed at another Arcelor site in the region. – AFP