Heavy rain and hail storm has resulted in the flooding of Suvodol coalmine, which provides most of the coal for thermal power plant Bitola.
The head of production at the coalmine Dimitar Petkovski said that coal excavation is ongoing but with difficulties and that the employees have been assigned to emergency tasks since yesterday in anticipation of more rain, which according to the forecast will continue over the weekend. He said that the excavation of tailings and coal is still ongoing, the process of coal excavation has not stopped and the employees are doing everything to deal with large inflows of water.
TPP Bitola had previous disastrous experiences with heavy rainfall in the mines. Two years ago, heavy storms and rain completely flooded the excavated fields and paralyzed the excavators and other machinery, after which it took a long time to pump out the water and the resulting mud, to allow access and return the coal mining process.
