A system designed to prevent miners working in unsafe conditions was knowingly switched off before a gas blast at a Russian colliery that killed more than 100 miners last month, the Reuters news agency reported quoting official statement by the state safety watchdog.

The explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region of Siberia on March 19, in which at least 108 people died, was Russia’s worst coal mining disaster since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It also exposed the plight of Russian miners, who are paid a portion of their wages at a flat rate, with the greater part linked to output.

Industry insiders say the miners are under pressure to cut corners to meet production targets, and sometimes tamper with safety systems rather than risk losing earnings when they are brought to the surface because of high methane gas levels underground.

“The automatic system monitoring the level of methane at the mine was deliberately put out of action in order to show a lower methane concentration and prevent a power shutdown in the mine,” Konstantin Pulikovsky, head of the safety watchdog Rostekhnadzor, was quoted by Russian agencies as saying.

On a trip to the Kemerovo region, he told journalists in the local metals and mining hub of Novokuznetsk that commands to switch off the control system had been given by “mine management at all levels”.

“There are grounds to suspect even those who died in the mine,” he said. “Law-enforcement bodies have yet to clarify the names of the suspects.”

It was not immediately possible to reach the mine’s owner, Yuzhkuzbassugol, for comment.

Yuzhkuzbassugol, Russia’s largest underground coal mining firm, is 50 percent owned by the country’s second-biggest steelmaker, Evraz Group SA. Management owns the other 50 percent and has operational control of the company.

Pulikovsky has already ordered checks for similar breaches at all Russia’s collieries.

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