USAID Responds to Donetsk Mine Disaster
USAID Assistant Administrator Doug Menarchik handed over badly-needed equipment to the Donetsk Occupational Disease Hospital on December 1, 2007 to help dozens of miners in the aftermath of Ukraine’s worst-ever mine disaster. The explosion that rocked the Zasyadko Coal Mine in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on November 18, the result of a build-up of methane gas, left 101 miners dead and 31 injured. Menarchik, himself a coal miner’s son, was on a visit to Ukraine to review USAID projects in the country. The equipment was in place at the hospital merely two weeks after the explosion in the mine, and perhaps more criticially, only hours after a second explosion ripped through the mine the day Menarchik visited the city, leaving 35 more injured miners in its wake. The speed with which the funds were approved and the equipment procured to help the miners is testament to how well USAID responds in times of emergency.
Dr. Yevgeniy Hladchuk, chief doctor at the Donetsk Occupational Diseases Hospital acknowledged that the U.S.-donated equipment was desperately needed. “It is in times like these that you know who your true friends are,” noted Dr. Hladchuk during the handover.
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| USAID Assistant Administrator Menarchik (left) delivers medical equipment critical for treatment of mine explosion victims to Dr. Yevgeniy Hladchuk (right) of Donestk Occupational Diseases Hospital in Ukraine |
The November 18 blast occurred at 3:11 am at a depth of 1,078 meters. At the time of the explosion there were 457 miners in the mine, 169 of whom working in close proximity to the blast. Rescue teams were immediately dispatched to the scene of the accident to begin rescue operations. However, the effectiveness of these operations was hindered due to the depth of the mine and the danger of continuing fires. The 31 miners in need of medical screening and treatment were hospitalized at the Donetsk Oblast Occupational Diseases Hospital in order to ascertain the extent of their injuries, mostly caused by poison gas inhalation.
Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine James Pettit was in Donetsk on November 20, two days after the tragedy, to express condolences on behalf of the U.S. to the victims’ families and the Ukrainian people. With an urgent need to provide effective diagnostic and therapeutic care to those miners still under hospitalized observation, the U.S. Government contributed medical equipment to enable hospital staff to quickly and accurately measure carbon monoxide levels in the blood and to treat identified conditions by decreasing the concentration of carbon monoxide (CO) in the blood.
The equipment – two plasmoferez units for purifying blood of CO and a pulse oximeter to detect carboxyhemoglobin, a derivative of CO inhalation – was in place and bound with a bright red ribbon when Menarchik and the USAID delegation arrived to present it to the hospital. He arrived as injured victims of the second explosion were arriving for emergency treatment.
Menarchik noted at a press conference that he well understood what the miners and the families of both the survivors and the victims were going through; while growing up in Pennsylvania mining country, he himself had known families whose fathers and brothers had perished in similar explosions.
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