KARAGANDA, Oct 31 — Standing shoulder to shoulder with his colleagues in the autumn drizzle, miner Arman Kasimov bid his final farewell to a friend killed in last week’s mining disaster.

So many of his colleagues died in the fire at Kazakhstan’s Kostenko coal mine last Saturday that he was forced to choose which funeral to attend.

"It is impossible to be in time for all of them,” he told AFP in the city of Karaganda.

The blaze, which claimed the lives of 45 people, sparked nationwide mourning in a country all too familiar with mining disasters.

Around a hundred people were gathered for the funeral of Yerbulat Adampayev, who had celebrated his 53rd birthday just a fortnight ago.

"He was a good guy you could count on, he gave advice to everyone,” Kasimov said.

Working in the mines pays slightly higher than the average wage for the region, but that premium comes at a cost.

The disaster on Saturday was the worst in the Central Asian country’s post-Soviet history, and came after a series of deadly accidents at other mines owned or by ArcelorMittal.

While the steel giant’s arrival in Kazakhstan was initially welcomed by locals seeking prosperity after the Soviet collapse of the 1990s, its reputation has been tarnished by repeated deaths.

Carried by a dozen men, Adampayev’s body was brought outside a local mosque.

Women could be heard crying out in grief as the funeral procession passed.

"Mining is like a pact with the devil,” Kasimov told AFP.

"You can support your family, but it takes your life.”

‘Zero’ safety

On the northern outskirts of Karaganda, where the vast Kazakh steppe begins, a wreath of flowers could be seen at the entrance to the Kostenko mine, where rescuers were still searching Monday for the last miner reported missing.

From the outside, little seems to have changed here since the fall of communism.

Red stars are still visible on mining equipment, while several portraits of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin can be seen on the walls.

Immediately after the incident, the Kazakh government announced that it had reached an agreement to take control of ArcelorMittal’s local subsidiary.

The steel giant had already faced scrutiny after a string of deadly incidents in recent years.

ArcelorMittal, which is run by the Luxembourg-based Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal, insists that it has done everything possible to improve safety at its sites in recent years.

But unions have criticised what they see as failures to act on safety concerns.

"If we periodically get such tragic cases, it means that the safety there is at level zero,” said Marat Mirgayazov, chairman at the Kazugleprof national coal mining union.

As the government worked on measures to improve mining conditions, the work of identifying the bodies continued Monday.

"Yesterday, a brigade leader had to go and identify the bodies that had been found,” Mirgayazov said.

"It was hard to watch him, his tears wouldn’t dry,” he said. — AFP