Rescuers among the dead as toll rises in twin Russian mine blasts

The death toll in a double explosion at a Siberian coal shaft climbed to 43 on Tuesday, Russian news agencies reported, and among the dead were many rescuers killed trying to reach trapped comrades. Hope was fading for 47 others caught in a darkened subterranean maze of methane gas and floodwater in what appeared to be the worst Russian mining disaster in three years. "Unfortunately the bodies that have been pulled out and their injuries give us less and less hope of finding anyone alive," said Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia's emergency situations minister, in a conference call with President Dmitri A. Medvedev. As the day wore on in the western Siberian city of Mezhdurechensk, the mine caverns were filling with water and no survivors were being recovered. At least eighteen of the dead were rescuers, Russian officials said.