Six miners have died following an explosion at a mine in Colombia’s central Cundinamarca department, regional Governor Jorge Rey Angel said.
“With regret, we report that the six people who were trapped inside the El Porvenir 1 mine in Cucunubá were found without signs of life following rescue efforts,” Rey said in a post on X, according to Caliber.Az.
Contact with the miners was lost after the explosion. According to radio station BluRadio, seven people were inside the mine when the incident occurred, but one managed to escape on his own.
The governor said that shortly before the incident, Colombia’s National Mining Agency had identified safety deficiencies at the site during an inspection and ordered the mine to suspend operations until the problems were addressed.
“It is precisely this agency that must determine why, despite the suspension of operations, people were apparently at the site carrying out rock-extraction work,” Rey said.
By Tamilla Hasanova
