The explosion in the Sutatausa mine was caused by an “accumulation” of gases” / Photo: Imagen TV.
The ten workers who had been trapped after the explosion in a coal mine tunnel in central Colombia were found dead, which brought the number of fatalities to 21President Gustavo Petro reported this Thursday.
“Unfortunately, 21 people lost their lives in this tragic accident in Sutatausa,” a municipality in the department of Cundinamarca, the Colombian president wrote on Twitter.
Coal mining claims another 21 lives in Sutatausa. Labor and business reconversion plans are increasingly essential in coal mining areas. Each work fatality is not only a business failure, but also a social and governmental one.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 16, 2023
The incident happened last Tuesday night. by “accumulation” of gases” that exploded by “a spark generated by a pike” from a worker, Governor Nicolás García said yesterday.
The miners were trapped at a depth of 900 meters, which made it difficult for the hundreds of rescuers who worked with picks to search for them.
tragedies
Mining tragedies are frequent in Colombia, especially in illegal tunnels in Cundinamarca and other departments in the center of the country, and the accumulation of gases is the most common reason for accidents.
Joselito Rodríguez, a 33-year-old survivor, told the AFP news agency that at the time of the explosion “I was working normally when I heard the noise, then I felt like I was going to drown and you couldn’t see anything“.
“Thank God we came out well, but others are already lifeless,” he added, detailing that men under 40 worked in the mines.
