32 people killed, dozen missing

Kazakhstan said yesterday that 32 people were killed in a fire in yet another deadly accident in a mine owned by ArcelorMittal, with over a dozen still missing, in the Central Asian country's worst disaster in years. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called the Luxembourg-listed ArcelorMittal group the "worst" company "in our history" and ordered his government to take control of the Kazakh branch of the company. ArcelorMittal has a history of deadly disasters in Kazakhstan and is regularly accused of failing to respect safety and environmental regulations. The fire was one of the deadliest in Kazakhstan's post-Soviet history and came just two months after five miners were killed in a blast at a site owned by the company.