Russian miners warn on closures

A PLAN to shut dozens of Russian coal-mines will create a swath of ghost towns across Russia's north and force an exodus of more than 2 million people from depressed coal- mining regions in Siberia and the Arctic, according to estimates released yesterday.

Russia's 800,000 coal-miners, who helped bring Boris Yeltsin to power with strikes in 1989 and 1991, complain of months without pay and conditions still more horrific than those that galvanised opposition to the Communist Party. Western experts argue that only when inefficient pits are shut can Russia's coal industry, the world's third biggest after the US and China, have any hope of recovery. Unions accept the need for some closures but also point to other problems, including corruption, with pit bosses and bureaucrats selling coal abroad and pocketing profits.

The Fuel and Energy Ministry has drawn up a list of 42 pits slated for closure by 2000. They produce a paltry 3 per cent of output. A quarter of Russian mines were built before 1945; all are technically obsolete and dangerous.

Yesterday Itar-Tass said the plan, though considered too cautious by some, would hurt 400 towns and cities, reducing many to 'lifeless settlements'. One of the first to vanish will be the Arctic settlement of Khalmar-Yu, north of Vorkuta. The mine is to cut production by a quarter this year. A dozen other mines will also begin closing this year, costing the government more than pounds 190m in compensation and other outlays.

Such restructuring will not only close pits but end the Soviet-era epic of the 'north', settled first by victims of Stalin's purges and then by miners and other workers lured by the promise of relatively high salaries and a new start. About 11 million people live in what is officially designated as the 'north' - a vast territory stretching from the border with Finland and Norway to the Far East.

Miners in Vorkuta recently helped form a body to try to keep the region alive. They are threatening to cut off coal, oil and other mineral supplies if the government does not pay salaries and meet a range of other demands. Siberia's Kuzbass region is also restive: the Independent Miners Union there yesterday called a strike for 1 March.

MOSCOW - The hardliners who rebelled against Mr Yeltsin in October could be released from prison as early as today under an amnesty approved by parliament, AP reports.