By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Death toll from an explosion in a coal mining site in Colombia on Friday reached seven, with additional four bodies discovered, officials said.
The head of the firefighting department in the central Cundinamarca region, Alvaro Farfan had announced the new toll on Friday.
Authorities said they suspect pockets of gas trapped in the mine detonated on their own.
The blast ripped through the mine overnight Wednesday into Thursday in Cucunuba municipality around 90 kilometres north of the capital Bogota.
Rescue teams initially found three bodies and four workers were still missing, whose bodies were finally spotted on Friday.
Videos shared on social media showed smoke billowing from a sinkhole in the dead of night while people dressed in civilian clothes carrying torches approached carefully.
Colombia is Latin America’s largest coal producer. Mining accidents are frequent in Colombia, particularly in illegal mines in Cundinamarca and other parts of the country’s center and northeast.
An explosion in mid-March in Sutatausa municipality, also in Cundinamarca, left 21 people dead and was one of the worst such tragedies in Colombia in recent years.
