By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-31 17:41:23 | Updated at 2025-04-02 06:19:58
1 day ago
Five people died and four were seriously injured in an explosion on Monday at a coal mine in northern Spain’s Asturias region, the nation’s deadliest mining accident in decades.
Two other workers at the Cerredo mine in Degana, around 450 km (280 miles) northwest of Madrid, were unharmed in the accident, local emergency services said.
It was the deadliest mining accident in Spain since 1995 when 14 people died following an explosion at a mine in Asturias near the town of Mieres.
Initial indications were that the blast was caused by firedamp, a term referring to methane forming an explosive mixture in coal mines, the central government’s representative in Asturias, Adriana Lastra, told reporters at the scene.
“Police are already investigating what happened, they are already at the scene,” she added.
The explosion took place underground in the mine at around 9:30am local time and as news of the blast spread, workers’ families flocked to the site, which was surrounded by police and emergency services vehicles.
“It’s scandalous. Companies used to guarantee safety, but they are doing it less and less,” Jose Antonio Alvarez, a relative of one the miners who died, told regional newspaper El Comercio.
