The greatest concern reigned on Thursday over the fate of three miners trapped 900 meters deep in a potash mine in Catalonia, northeastern Spain, following the collapse of a gallery.
The Catalan regional government – which runs the region’s police, fire and rescue services – confirmed their deaths in a tweet before deleting them.
“We deeply regret the death of the three miners in the Suria mine accident,” regional president Pere Aragonès wrote on Twitter, a message deleted a few minutes later.
Several Spanish media, citing sources within the emergency services intervening on the spot, claim that these three minors are dead.
Asked by AFP, a regional police spokesman said that “official confirmation (of their death) would only come once the doctors have reached their level, certify that they are dead and have informed the families.
According to the firefighters, these three miners are “trapped about 900 meters deep”.
The accident took place shortly before 9 a.m. (8 a.m. GMT) when a “collapse” occurred in a gallery of the mine, said the regional police who deployed specialized units to participate in the operation, including a canine unit.
The regional emergency services, for their part, specified that they had sent two medical helicopters and a team of psychologists to the scene.
Speaking of “terrible news”, the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, expressed her “affection” and her “solidarity with the families and colleagues of the employees who were victims of a collapse in the Suria mine”.
Two deaths in 2013
This potash mine belongs to ICL Iberia, the Spanish subsidiary of the Israeli group ICL.
On its website, this company based in Suria, a town about 80 km northwest of Barcelona, says it employs 1,100 people and is “the only company producing potassium salts in Spain”.
It has two mines in this area “which represent”, according to it, “one of the most important potash reserves in Western Europe”.
Two miners died in an accident at the same Suria mine in December 2013 following the collapse of the roof of a gallery, according to local media.
The most serious mining accident in Spain in recent years took place in October 2013. Six people died and five were injured due to a firedamp explosion at the Santa Lucía coal mine in the province of León ( North West). The trial of the company’s leaders opened recently.
In August 1995, fourteen people died following another explosion of firedamp, in a mine in the Asturias region (north).