An explosion at a coal mine in central Colombia killed nine miners and injured six others on Monday, officials said, in the latest deadly accident to strike the country’s mining sector.
The blast occurred at the Carbonera Los Pinos mine in Sutatausa, about 50 miles north of Bogotá, while 15 miners were working inside, Cundinamarca Gov. Jorge Emilio Rey said on the social platform X. Three miners escaped on their own, and the remaining three survivors were rescued.
Colombia’s National Agency for Mining said in a statement that officials inspected the mine in early April and recommended sealing off areas no longer used for coal extraction because of a potentially dangerous “accumulation of gases including methane.” The agency did not say whether the recommendation was implemented, and it expressed solidarity with the victims’ families, saying it “regrets this accident.”
The explosion is the second fatal mine disaster in Sutatausa in three years. In 2023, 11 miners were killed in an explosion at another coal mine in the same municipality. In 2020, 11 miners died in a mining accident in Cucunubá, also in Cundinamarca province.
Mining accidents are common in central Colombia, where dozens of small operators run coal and emerald mines. The National Agency for Mining said the rescue of the six survivors was thanks to the “opportune action of rescue workers.”