Almost 500 coal miners were trapped for a while in separatist-controlled Donetsk in Ukraine, after shelling knocked out a power station.

But a Donetsk city official told the Donetsk News Agency later in the afternoon that all the miners had been removed without injury and the power station was back online.

At about midday local time artillery fire damaged the Kievsky district power station, leaving 496 men stranded underground in the Zasyadko mine, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Officials from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic later told local news outlets that 110 miners had been evacuated and the rest were gradually coming out of the mine.

A Zasyadko miner who recently joined the pro-Russia separatists told the Guardian that workers usually set up a mobile generator above ground to power lifts and gradually take the miners out in such instances. He said several of his friends were still in the mine and blamed Ukrainian forces outside the city for the artillery strike.

“They’re still shelling at this very moment,” said the miner, who would give his name only as Andrei. “They don’t make war on the rebels, but rather on civilians.

“Measures are being taken, we can’t leave our people down there. I’m waiting for their call.”

Ukrainian forces have often shelled Donetsk and caused civilian casualties, at least sometimes firing in response to separatist shelling originating in residential areas. At least seven civilians were killed when a bus stop in the city was shelled last week, with both sides blaming each other.

The conflict in Ukraine, which has killed more than 5,000 people, reignited this month despite the work of diplomats in support of a little-observed ceasefire.

Miners in the Donetsk area have faced danger on numerous occasions due to the artillery war raging above their heads. Electricity to the Zasyadko mine was reportedly lost due to a shell strike on 11 January, trapping 364 miners below ground.

A French photographer happened to be with more than 50 miners half a mile below the surface at another mine in November when the impact of a shell cut off the electricity and ventilation. He documented their escape as they walked miles through underground shafts to an elevator that was still working.

The Zasyadko coal mine is one of the largest in Ukraine and has seen many incidents before, including a methane explosion in 2007 that killed 101 miners.

Separatist-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk are both part of a coal-rich region historically known as “Donbass”, or the Donetsk basin. The local economy is dependent on coal mining and metallurgy, and the local football team Shakhtar – which has been forced to play its home games in Lviv in western Ukraine since the conflict began – is named after the Ukrainian word for miner. .