"I thought I was going to choke," testified Wednesday to AFP a miner who survived the firedamp explosion the day before in a mine in Colombia which killed at least eleven people, while rescuers are trying to save ten others missing at 900 meters depth.
The accident occurred Tuesday evening in a coal mine in the municipality of Sutatausa (center), after an "accumulation" of gas came into contact with "a spark generated by the pickaxe" of a worker who triggered the explosion in several linked legal mines, explained to the media Blu Radio the governor of the department of Cundinamarca, Nicolas Garcia.
“Eleven people have been found dead and we are continuing the search to rescue the ten who remain” stuck, he said, adding that “all the teams of the National Mines Agency (ANM), firefighters, civil defence, Red Cross are actively involved in the rescue", in the department of Cundinamarca, two hours from the capital Bogota.
The trapped miners are 900 meters deep, making rescue operations difficult for the hundreds of rescuers, according to the governor. "Every minute that passes is less time for oxygen" and it will be "quite difficult" to find them alive, he estimated.
The National Mining Agency said on Twitter that two miners were "rescued alive" shortly after the explosion.
"I was working normally when I felt a rumble", then "I thought I was going to choke and I couldn't see anything", testified by telephone to AFP Joselito Rodriguez , a 33-year-old minor. "Thank God we came out unscathed but others are already dead," he said shortly after leaving hospital where he was treated for respiratory failure.
Images broadcast by local media show firefighters and rescue workers operating at the entrances to the mines. Miners working on other farms came to lend a hand. Around, a handful of people await news of their loved ones.
"A regrettable tragedy has occurred in the Sutatausa mine where eleven people have died. We are doing everything with the government of Cundinamarca to save those trapped. Solidarity with the victims and their families", tweeted Wednesday morning President Gustavo Petro.
Accidents in mines, often caused by firedamp explosions, are frequent in Colombia, especially in illegal mining operations, which are numerous in the country.
Colombia recorded 1,260 mining accidents between 2011 and May 2022, for an average annual death toll of 103, according to official data (148 deaths in 2021).
In August, nine miners were rescued in the same department of Cundinamarca after the collapse of the illegal coal mine in which they were working. In June, fifteen miners died in a coal mine in the municipality of Zulia, near the Venezuelan border.
Petroleum and legal mining are Colombia's main export products, a major coal producer. According to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Colombia had in 2020 "53% of proven coal reserves in Latin America and 0.6% of reserves" worldwide.
At least 130,000 people make a legal living from mining in Colombia, Latin America's fourth largest economy. But the unions regularly denounce the poor working conditions, the lack of protective equipment and the working hours.
Gustavo Petro had, even before taking power in August, called coal "poison" and had pledged to transfer mining jobs to the agricultural, clean energy and tourism sectors.
But illegal mining, along with drug trafficking, are the two main sources of income for the various Colombian armed groups.
03/15/2023 19:21:36 - Sutatausa (Colombia) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
