BOGOTA — Nine people have died and six others sustained injuries in an explosion at a coal mine in Colombia in the latest fatal accident to hit the country’s mining sector, the national mining agency said on Monday, several weeks after it issued risk control recommendations for the site. The blast occurred at the La Ciscuda mine, operated by Carbonera Los Pinos, in Sutatausa, north of Bogotá. Emergency workers said they rescued six miners from the shafts and they were receiving treatment in hospital. The captain of the regional fire department, Álvaro Farfán, said emergency workers were still working to retrieve the miners’ bodies. The accident seemed to be caused by a build-up of gases, the mining agency said, adding that it had recommended the mine strengthen its safety measures during a site visit on April 9 when it had identified gases, including methane, that could become dangerous. “As the ANM has warned during its inspection visits, coal deposits can present accumulations of gases such as methane, as well as concentrations of coal dust,” the agency said in a statement. Serious accidents are common at open-pit and subterranean coal and gold mines in Colombia, mostly at illegal or informal operations and those without proper safety measures. Last July, 18 workers were rescued from an unlicensed gold mine after having been trapped underground for 18 hours due to a mechanical failure. One of the deadliest recent incidents also unfolded in Sutatausa in 2023, when 21 people died in a blast which tore through the tunnels of a complex of coal mines in the area.
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