Rescuers have halted the search for nearly two dozen miners missing after a methane blast at a Kazakh coal mine, officials said Saturday, as high temperatures and dangerous gas levels raised the possibility of new explosions, AP reported. A regional prosecutor, meanwhile, announced a criminal investigation into possible safety violations at the Abay mine in the central Karaganda region. The explosion, which erupted about 500 meters (1,640 feet) underground on Friday, killed at least seven miners and left 14 hospitalized, several in critical condition. Government officials told reporters that the search for the 23 missing miners had been suspended due to the dangerous conditions. «The likelihood that the 23 miners are still alive is small, but there is still some hope, and the rescue operation will continue to the end,» Deputy Prime Minister Umirzak Shukeyev told a news conference. The Karaganda regional prosecutor office said in a statement that investigators would be looking into possible safety violations at Abay. Such criminal investigations are routinely announced after industrial disasters or accidents. The Abay mine is one of eight owned by the world's largest steel-maker, Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal SA, in this Central Asian nation. The mines are part of a complex that includes the Temirtau smelter, one of the world's largest steel plants. Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal's president and CEO, was slated to fly to the region on Monday. In 2006, an explosion at another Mittal-owned coal mine killed 41 people. Authorities concluded the blast occurred as a result of safety violations, and eight workers were convicted of negligence. Methane blasts are a hazard at coal mines across the former Soviet Union.
