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BOGOTA - Rescue workers have pulled out the bodies of 31 miners killed in a weekend explosion at a northeastern Colombian coal mine and another victim died in hospital, an official said today.
Rescue and recovery attempts were hampered by deadly gases lingering in the shafts of the La Preciosa mine near the mountain town of Sardinata, Norte de Santander province. The explosion Sunday was caused by combustible gases.
"We have recovered the bodies of the 31 miners who had been trapped in the mine," Fernando Rosales, head of the province's civil defence corps, told Reuters.
One miner was rescued alive but later died in a local hospital, bringing the death toll to 32.
Services for the fallen miners were held on Monday.
"This has had a terrible impact on the community, very painful," said Luis Alberto Gomez, mayor of the neighbouring village of El Zulia, where some of the victims lived.
President Alvaro Uribe ordered an investigation into the explosion at the small, privately owned mine producing coal for domestic consumption.
A similar accident occurred in El Zulia when a coal mine explosion killed 15 people in 2001.
Norte de Santander is an area contested by left-wing rebels and far-right paramilitary militias fighting a decades-old guerrilla war. Both groups, branded terrorists by Washington, fight over control of cocaine smuggling routes from the province into neighbouring Venezuela.
- REUTERS
