More than 70 miners were feared dead Thursday after an overnight explosion ripped through a Colombian coal mine, the Colombian Red Cross told AFP.
"We've located 16 bodies at the entrance to the mine whose deaths have now been confirmed," the head of the Red Cross rescue effort, Carlos Ivan Marquez, told AFP.
"We've been able to recover only 10 of them," he said, explaining that a build-up of carbon dioxide and other toxic gases prevented emergency teams from venturing into the shaft.
Another 55 miners known to be in the mine were feared dead.
"We don't have any information at this point about survivors. For that, we have to be able to get into the mine, which isn't possible because of a build-up of gases," he said.
Work was underway to ventilate the mine to permit rescuers to enter, he said.
Marquez said that when the explosion hit late Wednesday, there were 71 people inside the mine, located in Amaga, close to the city of Medellin.
The mayor of Amaga, Auxilio Zapata, said the local stadium was "already set up to receive the injured and the dead because the morgue does not have the capacity for an emergency like the one we are facing."
Luz Amanda Pulido, director of disaster prevention, said the hope of finding survivors was "not much, almost nothing."
President Alvaro Uribe called the fatalities "very sad news." He said the mine was in compliance with legal requirements.
"This is very serious. I tell Colombians this news with much pain," he said.
Early reports suggest the explosion resulted from a build up gas in the mine.
It occurred during an 11:00 pm (0400 GMT) shift change in one of the largest mines in the coal-producing northwest.
A flood in the same location killed five in 2008.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
