One of the miners injured in the October 30 explosion at the Uricani coal mine, in western Romania, passed away the morning of October 9.

He was one of the three workers injured in the accident, where another miner lost his life. The Uricani explosion was the second mine accident in Romania this October, after a gallery’s ceiling collapsed at the Lupeni coal mine on October 5, leaving two miners dead and one injured.

The deceased miner had been flown in for treatment to Bucharest’s Burn Hospital. He had burns on 40% of the body surface and his respiratory tract had been affected.

Another miner is still admitted at the Burn Hospital in the capital, while another is at the Bogdan Bagdasar Hospital, also in Bucharest.

At the time of the accident, the miners were performing damming works to have the mine closed. They were working some 50 meters underground.

Initial assessments of the accident showed that an explosion would have not been normally possible in the area because there were no electricity cables there to have caused a short-circuit. Another hypothesis was that the explosion could have been caused by methane ignitions in the underground.

During an ongoing investigation into the accident, cigarette stumps were found in the underground, News.ro reported. The lighting of cigarettes could have caused methane ignitions, according to sources quoted by local media.

The Uricani mine has been in a closing-down process since 2009. It should end any exploitation activities by the end of this year.

Also on November 9, health minister Florian Bodog asked for a review at the Burn Hospital, following information that the miner died because of infections contracted while in the hospital. Vasile Barbu, the president of the National Association for Patient Protection, told a local TV station that hospital infections caused the death of the miner.

Patient deaths by hospital infections became a hot topic in the country after a journalistic investigation revealed that many of the people who died after the Colectiv club tragedy in Bucharest in late 2015 were killed by aggressive germ infections they developed in the Romanian hospitals.

editor@romania-insider.com