At least 20 miners trapped by landslide in a gold mine in Colombia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombian authorities are investigating the fate of 20 miners who were trapped by a landslide in a gold mine in the municipality of Neira, Caldas department, official sources advised on Friday, March 26. The Secretariat of Environment of Caldas detailed that the landslide happened in the vereda (village) El Bosque.

The director of the National Mining Agency (ANM), Juan Miguel Durán, assured that the emergency response protocol was activated after to the accident, which occurred in a mine tunnel “where 20 miners are estimated to be missing”.

“A mining rescue team of the National Mining Agency was displaced to the area,” added the official on Twitter.

“According to preliminary information from authorities could be trapped miners in the area. The firefighting team is moving to the site of the emergency,” the agency said on its social networks.

The emergency, authorities in the region said, is being attended by firefighters from the town of Irra, in the neighboring department of Risaralda, which is closer to the area of the accident than the municipal capital of Neira.

Likewise, relief agencies, the Army, the Police, and officials of the Mayor’s Office of Neira, a coffee-growing municipality located in the Colombian Central Mountain Range, are being sent to the area.

The rescuers will take motor pumps to the area to remove water from the mine which apparently flooded because it is located very close to the Cauca River, the second most important river in Colombia.

On February 20, three people died and two more were injured in another accident in a mine in the municipality of Buriticá, in the department of Antioquia (northwest).

Source: EFE