(IDEX Online) - Alrosa is to build a new $1.5bn mine at Mir, following the 2017 flooding disaster that claimed eight lives.Work will start later this year and the first industrial production is expected in 2030-31, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.Aisen Nikolaev, head of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, where Alrosa is headquartered, has appraised Russian President Vladimir Putin of the development.""We have been designing a new mine over the years, it is fully designed. The company is already allocating investment funds," he said, according to a translation of the Interfax report."We have received approval from the government of the country. Through the Supervisory Board, all decisions have been made, and this year we are starting this largest project."Mir opened in 1957 as the first diamond in what was then the USSR, and had been producing 3.8m carats before it closed - around a tenth of Alrosa's total production.The catastrophic flood destroyed the mine, its workings and machinery.Reserves of almost 38m carats have been identified there, according to Alrosa's former CEO Sergei Ivanov.File pic courtesy Yakutia's Rescue Service shows its team at the mine