An explosion due to a methane build-up in a coal mine gallery in central Colombia on Tuesday killed 21 people, according to the final toll released Thursday by the authorities, who also announced that the facility’s operating license, granted to the Colombian, had been suspended. minminer group.

“Unfortunately, 21 people lost their lives in the tragic accident in Sutatausa”, in the province of Cundinamarca, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Twitter on Thursday.

It is one of the worst tragedies of this nature in recent years in the Latin American country, where tragic mining accidents are frequent.

Colombia recorded 1,260 such accidents and incidents from 2011 to May 2022, with an annual average death toll of 103, according to official data (148 deaths in 2021).

Prefect Nikolas Garcia had announced the day before Tuesday that eleven workers were found dead inside the mine after the explosion and that an operation was underway to find and rescue ten more trapped people.

In total, 30 people were working in the coal mine when the explosion occurred. The facility is located approximately 75 kilometers north of the capital Bogotá.

In a race against time, as oxygen dwindled in the mine cavities, they prevented several collapses in the galleries.

The miners were trapped 900 meters below the surface in the galleries of six interconnected mines, many of which collapsed in the chain reaction caused by the explosion.

“Unfortunately no one survived, we are heartbroken,” Prefect Garcia said yesterday via Twitter, announcing the end of the search and rescue operation.

The accident happened when a “concentration” of methane came into contact with a “spark that caused a hoe” of a worker, he explained yesterday Wednesday.

The mining license granted to Colombian group Minminer, which operates the mine, has been suspended pending an investigation, Sutatausa Mayor Jaime Arevalo told Blu radio station.

The authorities want to ascertain whether the coal mine had the necessary facilities to properly ventilate. In order for the methane not to “turn into an explosive”, it needs “a specific ventilation facility and a surveillance system capable of sounding an alarm” if a problem arises, explained Javier Pava, director of the national unit for the response to risks and disasters (UNGRD).

“There must be a risk management plan” and workers must go through emergency training, he added, speaking to public broadcaster Canal Institucional.

Mostly young people

Relatives of the miners uploaded photos of the victims, mostly young men, to social networking sites.

Soutatausa and nearby municipalities have a long tradition of coal mining.

Workers at the mine who were rescued described how chaos followed after the explosion.

“I was working when I heard a bang,” then “I thought I was going to suffocate and I didn’t see anything,” Joselito Rodriguez, a 33-year-old miner, told AFP by phone. “Thank God we got out safe, but others were not so lucky,” he added after being released from the hospital where he was admitted with respiratory failure.

Accidents in mining and quarrying, mainly due to concentrations of methane, are frequent in Colombia, especially in illegal exploitations, which abound.

President Petros has announced a plan for the “energy transition”, in order to gradually abandon the exploitation of coal and oil.

“Every workplace death is not just a business failure, it is a social and government failure,” he stressed yesterday.

Oil, coal and legally mined minerals are Colombia’s main exports.

At least 130,000 people work legally in mines and mining in Latin America’s fourth-largest economy. But unions often complain about poor working conditions, a lack of protective equipment and endless hours.

The worst accident of this nature in Colombia’s recent history occurred in June 2010, when 73 people were killed in a mine explosion in the northwestern part of the country.