An explosion in an allegedly illegal gold mine in central Colombia has killed at least three miners, the country’s mining authority said Monday.
A spokesperson of the Colombian Institute for geology and Mining told reporters “we do not know how many people were working at the moment [of the blast] but it has been confirmed that three of them died.”
According to the official, the incident took place in the municipality of Puerto Berrio, in the east of the Antioquia department, and was caused by “a shortage of oxygen and the presence of carbon dioxide.”
Authorities sent a rescue team to the site.
In 2011, 45 Colombian miners died in work-related accidents.