Norilsk factory director detained after death of three workers

According to theInvestigative Committee of Russia, the tragedy in Norilsk occurred on February 20. As a result of the collapse of the building structures of the building of the crushing warehouse of the Norilsk concentration plant, three workers died, five were injured of varying severity. On the fact of the state of emergency in the UK, a criminal case was opened under Part 3 of Art. 216 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Violation of safety rules during work, resulting in the death of two or more persons by negligence).

“At present, the court granted the request of the investigation, choosing a measure of restraint in the form of detention against the chief engineer and head of the department for technical supervision of the Norilsk concentration plant”, - the Investigative Committee said.

In addition, the investigators decided to detain the director of the Norilsk washing plant. According to the investigation, he “reliably knew about the emergency and limited working condition of the elements of the crushing shop building, while he did not take measures to suspend work carried out in violation of industrial safety requirements, which resulted in the collapse of the structure of the ore transfer unit and two adjacent elevated pedestrian galleries”.

In the UK, it was clarified that back in 2018, Moscow experts issued a conclusion that part of the structures of the workshop building was in a limited working condition. Experts recommended that the damage be repaired no later than December 2019 and December 2020. However, their recommendations were ignored at the enterprise. All this time, the shop structures continued to deteriorate and eventually collapsed, burying three employees of the contractor under the rubble.

According to Interfax, on the day of the collapse, the head of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, blamed the factory management for violations of safety regulations and industrial safety standards. At the same time, the quotes of Norilsk Nickel on the Moscow Exchange fell by almost 5% against the background of news of an emergency with the death of people.

Within the framework of the initiated criminal case, 20 witnesses and eyewitnesses have already been interrogated. Searches were carried out at the factory, documents were seized. If the guilt of the detainees can be proven, they face up to seven years in prison.

Since 2016, the Norilsk dressing plant has been part of Medvezhy Ruchey LLC, a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel. It processes disseminated ores from the Norilsk-1 deposit, as well as cuprous and disseminated ores from the Oktyabrskoye and Talnakhskoye deposits. Now it processes up to seven million tons of ore out of 18 million coming into processing in Taimyr. The company plans to increase the volume to 10 million.