Tuesday, June 09, 2009 DONETSK: Rescue teams on Tuesday pressed on with efforts to find seven miners missing deep underground in Ukraine's Donbass coalfield more than 24 hours after an accident that killed six of their comrades.Rescue workers have conceded there is little chance of finding the missing men alive at the Skochynsky colliery, with gas levels still high and underground temperatures of 43 Celsius (109 Fahrenheit). Thirty-one teams of rescue workers and medics have been dispatched to the mine in Donetsk, the coalfield's main centre.Officials say the accident, 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) below the surface, was caused by a release of methane and a rock fall during maintenance work at the pit, equipped with some of Ukraine's most sophisticated safety equipment.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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