Bogota, June 17 (IANS) A coal mine explosion in northwestern Colombia killed at least 16 miners and trapped over 70, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Thursday.
The explosion occurred in the early hours of Thursday in San Fernando mine in Amaga town in Antioquia province, 240 km from Bogota, and may have been caused by accumulation of gas, Uribe said.
Describing the incident as a ‘huge tragedy’, Uribe said: ‘We have reports of 72 people trapped and now we have recovered 16 bodies.’
‘This is very serious. I tell Colombians this news with much pain,’ he was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Local media reports quoted disaster relief officials as saying that hopes were very dim for finding survivors.
The most serious accident in Amaga occurred in 1977, when at least 86 miners working in a coal mine were killed in an explosion.
