At least thirty seven dead following gas build-up at Nigerian mine.

At least 37 have died and another 25 have been hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning following an incident at a mine in Nigeria on Wednesday 18 February 2025. The mine, at Kampani, near the town of Wase in Plateau State, is a former commercial lead mine which had been re-opened by local artisanal miners. The site has currently been cordoned off by local authorities pending an investigation, and it is possible that further bodies remain underground. The affected miners had been working a night shift at the mine and were discovered by members of the day shift when they entered the mine at 6.30 am local time.

A funeral being held for the victims of an accident at a mine in Plateau State, Nigeria, on 18 February 2026. In accordance with Islamic custom, all of the victims were laid to rest on the day of the incident. The Sun Nigeria.

Artisanal occupations, in which miners from poorer communities occupy sites which have either been decommissioned or mothballed by larger mining companies (decommissioned mines have ceased all operations permanently, whereas mothballed mines are mines which are still considered workable, but where production has been halted for some reason, usually a decease in the value of the mineral being targeted). In these cases local miners extract minerals themselves from the site, typically using traditional hand tools or other low tech approaches. This can be an extremely dangerous activity, as local miners are seldom able to put into place the safety measures a larger company would, and are often working deeper below ground than would otherwise be possible with the tools at their disposal. 

The legal status of such mines makes matters more complicated; law enforcement agencies in some countries are prepared to turn a blind eye to such activities, but the owners of mines, particularly those which have been mothballed, tend to object strongly, placing pressure on law enforcers to arrest and prosecute what they see as illegal miners. This can lead to miners being surreptitious about their activities, and trying to hide them from the local authorities, something which will delay or even prevent rescue operations from being mounted accidents occur.

The approximate location of the 18 February 2026 mining incident. Google Maps.

Carbon monoxide, sometimes known as whitedamp in mines, is typically produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon and/or hydrocarbons, where the oxygen levels are insufficient to produce carbon dioxide. It is dangerous because it does not simply replace the oxygen in the air, as with asphyxiant gasses such as nitrogen, it also binds to the oxygen-receptive sites on the haemoglobin molecule, from where it cannot be removed by normal metabolic processes, thereby removing the victims ability to process oxygen. This means that carbon monoxide becomes hazardous at far lower levels than most other gasses. Since it is colourless, odourless, and tasteless, victims often do not realise they are being poisoned until it is too late. 

Carbon monoxide poisoning is a common hazard at coal mines, where there is an abundance of raw carbon and a limited supply of oxygen, and can even build up in seams catching miners unaware. However, the Kampani mine produces lead, in an area with a largely igneous terrain and a metals-based mining economy (the town of Wase is noted for the presence of Wase Rock, an exposed volcanic plug forming a pillar-shaped hill) which makes this explanation unlikely. It is possible that the miners were using petrol-fuelled equipment, such as drills, generators, or even ventilators, in an enclosed area with limited oxygen, and that incomplete combustion of fuel led to the formation and build-up of carbon monoxide.

Wase Hill in Plateau State, Nigeria. A former volcanic plug which has remained after the softer outer part of the volcano has been eroded away, it stands 295 m above the surrounding plain of the Benue Rift, and can be seen from 40 km away. Dolapo Moses Apata/Wikimedia Commons.

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The Holly and the Alphaproteobacterium.

The Family Phyllobacteriaceae comprises a group of 19 genera of Alphaproteobacteria, commonly associated with Plants, with many species associated with nitrogen-fixation, nutrient cycling and bioremediation (converting toxic substances into non-toxic substances), although other species are found free-living in soil or water. Strains belonging to the family Phyllobacteriaceae are usually Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, aerobic, non-spore forming and non-motile or motile utilising polar, subpolar or lateral flagella. Many members of the genera Mesorhizobium and Phyllobacterium have Plant-growth-promoting properties, with Mesorhizobium in particular commonly associated with the rhizosphere (root-system and associated biological community) of Legumes, where some species have been shown both to fix nitrogen, which is then utilised by the Plants, and receive carbon compounds from the Plants in return. Members of the genus Aminobacter have also been shown to be capable of fixing nitrogen and in some cases to be associated with the root-nodules of Legumes, although this genus is typically free-living in soil or water, with some species surviving entirely chemolithotropicly, utilising carbon monoxide in the process.

In a paper published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology on 3 November 2025, Sinchan Banerjee of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, András Táncsics of the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Zeqin Wu, Tudor Stafioiu, and Jiacheng Gao, also of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, Erika Tóth of the Department of Microbiology at Eötvös Loránd University, Erzsébet Baka, also of the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Gary Bending and Hendrik Schäfer, again of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, describe a new species of Phyllobacterium, derived from the leaves of a Holly tree, with the ability to oxidise carbon monoxide.

Carbon monoxide is a common pollutant, produced by a range of industrial and other Human activities, and deadly to both Human and most Animal life. Notably, it is a significant product of biomass burning, which many countries are looking to as a potential energy source as they try to move away from a dependence on fossil fuels. Carbon monoxide is also produced by a range of natural occurrences, from forest fires to rock weathering, but does not build up in the environment, as it is also removed by a range of biological and non-biological processes. This means that carbon monoxide does not present a global atmosphere-changing threat, in the way that carbon dioxide or methane emissions do, but that it does represent a significant hazard at the local level, and that means of reducing that hazard are of interest to a range of researchers.

The phyllosphere, that part of Plants which is above the ground, presents a novel and often challenging environment for micro-organisms, with fluctuating exposure to heat and ultraviolet radiation, nutrient supplies strictly controlled by the host-Plant, and, frequently, exposure to a range of environmental pollutants. 

Banerjee et al. collected Common Holly, Ilex aquifolium, leaves from Tocil Wood Nature Reserve in Coventry, UK. Leaf-wash preparations were made from these, and stored in vials with the headspace filled with carbon monoxide. Samples where the carbon monoxide level was found to drop were placed on agar plates, and incubated at 25°C for five days, to promote Bacterial growth. 

The resultant colonies were subject to 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, which established that Banerjee et al. had found a novel Barcterial strain, which they identified as SB112ᵀ. This strain was then subjected to a full genome phylogenomic analysis, establishing that it was a novel species of Phyllobacterium, related to the genus Mesorhizobium. 

Since SB112ᵀ does not appear to fir into any currently designated genus, Banerjee et al. assign it to a new genus, which they name Foliimonas, which is derived from 'folium' meaning 'leaf' and 'monas' meaning 'unit' (a common suffix for Bacterial names), and give it the specific name ilicis, meaning 'of the Holly Tree'.

Phylogenomic tree constructed using Up-to-date Bacterial Core Genes (concatenated alignment of 92 core genes) showing the phylogenetic position of Foliimonas ilicis (SB112ᵀ). For inferring the tree, the FastTree algorithm was used. Bar represents 0.02 substitution per nucleotide position. Banerjee et al. (2025).

Foliimonas ilicis is a Gram- reaction- negative, aerobic, rod-shaped Bacterium, which is motile with a polar flagellum. Cells have an average length of 1.18 μm. The species has an optimum growth range of 20-37°C, with growth stopping completely below 4°C. Foliimonas ilicis can oxidise carbon monoxide, but is unable to reduce nitrous oxides of ferric citrate. It produces esterase (C4), esterase lipase (C8), leucine arylamidase, acid phosphatase, naphthol-AS-BI-phosphohydrolase, valine arylamidase, cystine arylamidase and trypsin, but not urase. It could assimilate d-glucose, l-arabinose, d-mannitol, d-mannose, potassium gluconate and malic acid, and metabolise l-arabinose, d-xylose and xylitol.

Transmission electron microscopic photograph showing cell morphology and presence of flagella in Foliimonas ilicis. Scale bar is 1 µm. Banerjee et al. (2025).

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Russian mine safely evacuates 128 employees after a rise in carbon monoxide is detected.

A mine in Kemerovo Oblast in southwest Siberia has safely evacuated 128 miners who were working below ground when a rise in carbon monoxide was detected on Sunday 19 December 2021. The sudden increase triggered concerns that a fire might be burning within the mine (coal, which is essentially pure carbon, usually burns to produce carbon dioxide, but when the oxygen supply is limited, as in an underground mine, incomplete combustion can result in the production of the more deadly carbon monoxide). However, the owners of the Ruban Mine have found no evidence of a fire, and now believe the gas was emitted directly from the coal following a rise in temperature within the mine.

 

Russian emergency workers attending a mine in Kemerovo Oblast following the detection of a rise in carbon monoxide levels, which provoked concerns about the risks of an underground fire. Generico.

Coal is formed when buried organic material, principally wood, in heated and pressurized, forcing off hydrogen and oxygen (i.e. water) and leaving more-or-less pure carbon. Methane is formed by the decay of organic material within the coal. There is typically little pore-space within coal, but the methane can be trapped in a liquid form under pressure. Some countries have started to extract this gas as a fuel in its own right. When this pressure is released suddenly, as by mining activity, then the methane turns back to a gas, expanding rapidly causing, an explosion. This is a bit like the pressure being released on a carbonated drink; the term 'explosion' does not necessarily imply fire in this context, although as methane is flammable this is quite likely.

Coal is also comprised more or less of pure carbon, and therefore reacts freely with oxygen (particularly when in dust form), to create carbon dioxide and (more-deadly) carbon monoxide, while at the same time depleting the supply of oxygen. This means that subterranean coal mines need good ventilation systems, and that fatalities can occur if these break down.

While this incident resulted in no harm, with employees being safely evacuated from a potential threat, which is good practice in mine safety management, the Russian Emergencies Ministry has raised concerns about mine safety in Kemerovo Oblast, following an explosion at the Listvyazhnaya Mine which killed 51 people in November, with one of the mine's owners subsequently being arrested on suspicion of falsifying data on methane emissions within the mine. Kemerovo Oblast was also the location of the worst mining disaster in post-Soviet Russian history, when an explosion at the Ulyanovskaya Mine killed more than 100 people.

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Sixteen fatalities caused by mine fire in Chongqing, China.

Sixteen miners have died and one is being treated in hospital following a fire at a coal mine in the Municipality of Chongqing in southwest China on Sunday 27 September 2020. The fire is understood to have broken out at the Songzao Mine on a conveyer belt used to carry coal from the excavation front to the surface. This ignited coal dust in the mine, which is more or less pure carbon, which reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce deadly carbon monoxide gas (carbon usually produces carbon dioxide when it burns, but within coal mines, where there is abundant carbon, in a powdered form, and a limited supply of oxygen, then incomplete combustion often occurs, resulting in the formation of the much more deadly carbon monoxide). The cause of the incident is still being investigated, but it is understood that the mine had previously been fined for breached of safety regulations.

 

Rescue workers at the Songzao Coal Mine in Chongqing on Sunday 27 September 2020. Associated Press.

Coal is formed when buried organic material, principally wood, in heated and pressurized, forcing off hydrogen and oxygen (i.e. water) and leaving more-or-less pure carbon. Methane is formed by the decay of organic material within the coal. There is typically little pore-space within coal, but the methane can be trapped in a liquid form under pressure. Some countries have started to extract this gas as a fuel in its own right. When this pressure is released suddenly, as by mining activity, then the methane turns back to a gas, expanding rapidly causing, an explosion. This is a bit like the pressure being released on a carbonated drink; the term 'explosion' does not necessarily imply fire in this context, although as methane is flammable this is quite likely.

Coal is also comprised more or less of pure carbon, and therefore reacts freely with oxygen (particularly when in dust form), to create carbon dioxide and (more-deadly) carbon monoxide, while at the same time depleting the supply of oxygen. This means that subterranean coal mines need good ventilation systems, and that fatalities can occur if these break down.

China gains 70% of its energy from coal-burning power stations, which places the country under great pressure to maintain coal supplies. This has led to a poor safety record within the mining sector, particularly in the private sector, where there is a culture of seeking quick profits in poorly regulated (and sometimes officially non-existent) mines.  However, the Chinese authorities have been making efforts to remedy this situation, introducing safety regulations and closing (or at least attempting to close) mines that fail to comply. Annual deaths in Chinese mines have steadily fallen from 6995 in 2002 to 316 in 2019.

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Thirteen confirmed dead and twenty two missing following explosion at South African coal mine.

Thirteen men have been confirmed dead and another twenty two are still missing following an explosion at the Gloria Coal Mine near Middelburg in Mpumalanga State, South Africa, on Monday 4 February 2019. The dead and missing men are part of a group of 42 Lesotho nationals who entered the mine, which has been closed since September 2018 when its parent company went into administration, with the intention of stealing copper wiring. Some time after the men entered the mine they triggered a methane explosion, trapping the majority of them below the ground. Initial rescue attempts were able to recover six bodies, but were hampered by much of the mine having been flooded with highly toxic carbon monoxide gas, with attempts to flush this from the mine hindered by damage done to the mine's ventilation system by the removal of copper wiring. Another seven bodies were recovered on Thursday 14 February, following restoration of power to part of the ventilation system, and another attempt to enter the mine will be made today (16 February), though it is estimated that restoring full ventilation to the mine will cost around R310 million (US$22 million), with much of the rescue work being carried out by workers at the mine who have not been paid since October.

Mine rescue specialists discuss plans to re-enter the Gloria Coal Mine near Middelburg with government officials this week. Gwede Mantashe/Twitter.

Coal is formed when buried organic material, principally wood, in heated and pressurised, forcing off hydrogen and oxygen (i.e. water) and leaving more-or-less pure carbon. Methane is formed by the decay of organic material within the coal. There is typically little pore-space within coal, but the methane can be trapped in a liquid form under pressure. Some countries have started to extract this gas as a fuel in its own right. When this pressure is released suddenly, as by mining activity, then the methane turns back to a gas, expanding rapidly causing, an explosion. This is a bit like the pressure being released on a carbonated drink; the term 'explosion' does not necessarily imply fire in this context, although as methane is flammable this is quite likely.

Relatives of the trapped men gathered outside the Gloria Coal Mine near Middleburg this week. Findall News.

Coal is also comprised more or less of pure carbon, and therefore reacts freely with oxygen (particularly when in dust form), to create carbon dioxide and (more-deadly) carbon monoxide, while at the same time depleting the supply of oxygen. This means that subterranean coal mines need good ventilation systems, and that fatalities can occur if these break down.

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Deciphering the rings of 10199 Chariklo.

10199 Chariklo is a Centuar (asteroid or comet-like body found between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune), which was first discovered in 1997 and subsequently found to be the largest such body, with an estimated diameter of about 300 km. Like other Centaurs it is thought to have originally been a Kuiper Belt Object, i.e. a body orbiting outside Neptune, that was pushed further into the Solar System by an encounter with the planet. In 2014 10199 was discovered to have a system of rings, the first non-planetary mass object to have such a system, though a similar ring system has since been found around another Centaur, Chiron.

In a paper published on the online arXiv database at Cornell University Library on 4 February 2016, Margaret Pan and Yanqin Wu of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto examine the rings of 10199 Chariklo, in order to determine their properties and try tounderstand their origins.

Artist's impression of 10199 Chariklo. Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia.

Pan and Wu calculate that 10199 Chariklo has an oblateness of 0.213 (i.e. its equatorial radius is 21.3% larger than its polar radius) and that its equatorial radius is 144.9 km. The body has two known rings, an inner ring with a radius of 390.6 km and a width that varies between 5.5 and 7.1 km, while the outer ring has a radius of 404.8 km and has a width of 3.6 km. Using these measurements combined with the optical depth of the rings (i.e. their transparency, the amount of light they absorb as it passes through them), Pan and Wu calculate that the rings have a total mass of about 10 billion tonnes.

Next Pan and Wu considered possible scenarios for the formation of the rings of 10199 Chariklo. In order to do this it was assumed that the average residency in a Centaur-type orbit is about five million years; Centaurs orbit in an area of the Solar System where they are perturbed by the gravitational influences of the giant planets, and ate therefore thought likely to be disrupted from these orbits in a relatively short time (astronomically speaking). Prior to becoming a Centaur 10199 Chariklo is assumed to have been a Kuiper Belt Object, orbiting outside the orbit of Neptune for about five billion years (i.e. the age of the Solar System). Furthermore Pan and Wu calculate that given the week gravitational pull of 10199 Chariklo, the rings should disperse to the point of no longer being visible within about 500 000 years of their formation, unless they are being constantly replenished from some source. This lifetime could be lengthened if the rings are accompanied by several shepherding satellites (i.e. larger bodies orbiting 10199 Chariklo that excerpt gravitational influences on the rings), however this would require several kilometre sized objects, which are unlikely to have remained undetected.

Firstly Pan and Wu examined the possibility that the rings might have originated while 10199 Chariklo was still within the Kuiper Belt. The most likely cause of ring-formation around a body in the Kuiper Belt would be a collision with a smaller body. Impact events are thought to be extremely rare in the Kuiper Belt (where matter is extremely thinly spread), but over the course of five billion years an object the size of 10199 Chariklo might be expected to undergo several such collisions. However the likelihood of such an event having happened within the last 500 000 years is extremely low, and the likelihood of our having observed two bodies (Chariklo and Chiron) with ring systems caused by collisions in the Kuiper Belt within the last 500 000 years is negligible.

An alternative scenario is that matter could have been removed from the surface of 10199 Chariklo by rotational disruption, however the body currently only rotates on its access roughly once every seven hours, not fast enough to cause such disruption, and there is no reason to believe that it would have rotated significantly faster within the last 500 000 years.

A third possible scenario is that the rings began as a small satellite orbiting 10199 Chariklo while it was in the Kuiper Belt, which was broken up by tidal forces during the encounter with Neptune that pushed it into a Centaur-type orbit. Such small moons are thought likely to be quite common around Kuiper Belt Objects, so this scenario has some plausibility, however in order for rings generated by such an encounter to survive, the object would have to be shifted from a Kuiper Belt orbit to a Centaur orbit in a single encounter with Neptune. Models of such processes suggest that most Kuiper Belt Objects take several close encounters with Neptune to disrupt them into the Solar System, with only a very small percentage being shifted in a single encounter. Again this is just about plausible for a single body, but the presence of two ringed Centaurs suggests that some other factor is at play.

As an alternative Pan and Wu suggest that the rings could be the result of dust being carried from the surface of the body during outgassing events. For the purpose of the study they model outgassing of carbon monoxide, but note that essentially the same processes could apply to outgassing of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, cyanide or other volatile compounds,

Carbon monoxide has a very low sublimation point (point at which it turns directly from a solid to a gas), so that it can be removed from a body even by the gentle warming the Sun provides in the Kuiper Belt. This means that a Kuiper Belt Object orbiting at about 20 AU (20 times as far from the Sun as the Earth) would have lost all of its carbon monoxide over the five billion year history if the Solar System. However a body at 40 AU would only have lost carbon monoxide down from its surface down to a depth of about 1 km,  with more deeply buried carbon monoxide protected from the Sun's heat.

Were such a body moved into a Centaur-type orbit by an encounter with Neptune, then such buried carbon monoxide would be heated to above its sublimation point and degas into space, in the same way as comets (thought to be Kuiper Belt Objects knocked into the Inner Solar System) emit gas and dust to form a coma and tail as they approach the Sun. 10199 Chariklo currently orbits at an average distance of 15.8 AU, at which distance Pan and Wu calculate the body would be warmed through sufficiently for all carbon monoxide to be lost from its interior within 500 000 years. However the body has a highly eccentric orbit, varying from 13.1 to 18.5 AU over an orbital period of 22 915 days, sufficient to provoke distinct seasonality on the surface. This means that even though the interior of the body had warmed sufficiently for carbon monoxide to sublimate, temperature variations at the surface could lead to the gas resolidifying close to the surface during the 'winter' season when it is furthest from the Sun.

 The calculated orbit of 10199 Chariklo. JPL Small Body Database Browser.

This seasonality could lead to a spring on 10199 Chariklo (possibly quite close to perihelion, when the body is at its nearest to the Sun), when the surface could reach a critical temperature and large quantities of accumulated subsurface carbon monoxide could degas over a very short period of time, carrying considerable volumes of dust from the surface. Even if the majority of this dust fell back to the surface a sufficient amount could reach an altitude high enough to remain in orbit to create at least a temporary orbit, creating at least a temporary ring system. Crucially such a series of events would slow down the rate at which carbon monoxide is lost from 10199 Chariklo, so that instead of a slow degasing over 500 000 years, a series of interrupted degasing events could go on for several million years.

See also...

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Sinkholes on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Many comets have been observed to have pitted surfaces. Initially these pits were thought to be the result of collisions with smaller bodies, as with craters on planets and moons, but they have been shown to be far to numerous for this to be the case, as...

Emissions from Comet C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR).                                                C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR) was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) team at the...

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