THE coal miners feared something was wrong when they began their early morning shift nearly 2,000ft underground at the Abaiskaya mine in Kazakhstan.

Rumours spread that men from the previous shift had warned of dangerously high gas levels, but managers, determined to hit production targets, were unwilling to stop work.

The miners had good reason to be afraid. Two massive explosions in nearby pits owned by Lakshmi Mittal, Britain’s richest man, had already killed 64 of their colleagues in less than three years.

Abaiskaya is one of seven Kazakhstan mines owned by Arcelor Mittal, the company headed by the Indian-born steel tycoon whose personal fortune is estimated at £19 billion. Most of the coal is used to power a nearby steel plant also owned by Mittal.

Since 2004 accidents in his Kazakh mines owned by his group have claimed 121 lives. Mounting concerns over poor safety have led Vladimir Bozhko, head of Kazakhstan’s ministry of emergencies, to warn that ArcelorMittal could be forced to close the Abaiskaya mine unless safety is improved.

“We had just started our shift when the first explosion went off,” said Alexander Anikin, one of the miners working at Abaiskaya on January 11. “I was covered in coal-dust and could hardly breathe. Then suddenly a second, massive blast went off. I was on fire and all around me flames were raging. I crawled along a tunnel for 100 yards, passing three of my colleagues. They were dead and so badly burnt I couldn’t recognise them.”

Anikin, 46, suffered 60% burns. Weeks later he was still in hospital, his body swollen and covered in boils. Lying next to him were 13 other miners with severe burns. Thirty of their colleagues died in the blast.

For days a fire raged in the pit. Fearing another blast, rescuers, who were only able to recover nine bodies, flooded the shaft, leaving the other 21 underground. Among the dead were two brothers and a young miner who had been on his first day.

“We survived hell,” said Marat, who was badly burnt. “Every time we go to work we risk our lives. We’re treated like cheap labour. We have to pay for our own boots and jackets and aren’t allowed to eat properly in case we produce less coal.”

Last May The Sunday Times visited Shakhtinsk, a mining town where an accident at a Mittal mine had killed 41. Miners warned that safety measures were poor and equipment outdated. Now angry coal miners in Abai, the town where most of those killed in the latest blast lived, have criticised Mittal’s managers. They said conditions had not improved since the ear-lier blasts.

Mittal, who travelled to Shakhtinsk and Abai to meet the families of the dead, has raised salaries in the past 18 months, in some cases threefold. But miners said that the highest salaries after 20 years’ service were still only £500 a month.

Like other Kazakh mining villages, Abai is a desolate, poverty-stricken place. Miners live in rows of half-abandoned, Soviet-era blocks of flats. Miners employed by Mittal’s companies have claimed that part of their salary is regularly withheld by managers who say they have failed to meet targets. They say they do not receive overtime or sick pay and are threatened with the sack if they complain.

Weeping at a snow-covered grave, Lubov Vlasova, 21, said that her husband Andrei, 34, who was killed in the Abaiskaya explosion, received only £110 in his last pay cheque. Now left to care for the couple’s baby boy, Vlasova said Andrei’s salary had been cut after he took part in a strike following the Shakhtinsk accident. “He worked 18 years as a miner but was paid a pittance,” said Vlasova. “They worked him like an animal.”

The emergencies ministry accused ArcelorMittal of neglecting safety during the rapid expansion of Abaiskaya, where production has risen more than 30% since 2001.

ArcelorMittal miners alleged that alarm systems used to detect gas levels date back to Soviet times. They are faulty and lack precision. Ventilation pipes are made of a rubberised cloth that often tears. Miners repair it by hand with metal wire. Workers in Kazakhstan still use shovels and carry the 260lb steel pit props used to shore up the mine shafts. Lifts designed to carry often no more than 28 people are crammed with up to 40.

When gas detectors start beeping, miners afraid that their pay will be docked sometimes place them on the ground, where levels are lower, or even cover them with their jackets. Four or five men dig out up to five tons of coal in a seven-hour shift. Many miners said working conditions were better in Soviet times.

“Despite three major accidents, we’ve yet to see someone from senior management resign,” said Svetlana Sarmullin, 27, who lost her husband Nurlan in the Abaiskaya blast. “They say gas levels were very high. Why did they send my husband and the others down there?”

A spokesman for ArcelorMittal said the rumours of high gas levels in the previous shift were untrue and that an investigation was under way. “It’s a very tragic accident and one that the group takes very seriously,” said the spokesman. “ArcelorMittal takes safety as its number one priority. The accident rate has been reduced by several times since ArcelorMittal took over in 1996 and we are investing substantially in the ongoing modernisa-tion of the mines, with a specific focus on health and safety. In 2006 an investment programme of £170m was approved.”

The company said it had spent £40m in 2007, including some £12m on safety equipment, including ventilation, electrical upgrades, new methane monitors and safety-related training. “We are also focusing heavily on behavioural aspects to ensure that employees fully understand the importance of following the health and safety standards.”

In a settlement generous by Kazakhstan’s standards, ArcelorMittal paid the family of each dead miner a lump sum equivalent to 10 years’ salary and the £40,000 needed to buy a flat in Karaganda, the regional capital. The company has also promised to pay to put their children through higher education.

The compensation has done little to abate anger, however. An Abaiskaya miner who lost four friends said: “Mittal gets high-quality coal cheaply and we are his cannon fodder. Until that changes, it won’t be a matter of whether another terrible accident could happen. It will.”

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