Satellite spots huge burst of methane from Russian coal mine

A private company that uses satellites to spot sources of methane emissions around the globe said Wednesday that it detected one of the largest artificial releases of the potent greenhouse gas ever seen, coming from a coal mine in Russia earlier this year.

Montreal-based GHGSat said one of its satellites, known as Hugo,’ observed 13 methane plumes at the Raspadskaya mine in Siberia on January 14. The incident likely resulted in about 90 metric tons of methane being belched into the atmosphere in the space of an hour, the company calculated.

“This was a really, really dramatic emission,” Brody Wight, GHGSat’s director of energy, landfills and mines told The Associated Press.