Death toll rises to four in Colombia mine disaster

Yahoo – AFP, 4 May 2014

Colombian rescuers remove sludge looking for victims of a gold mine that

 collapsed while independent mine workers were excavating it without authorization,

in San Antonio, on May 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Santander de Quilichao (Colombia) (AFP) - Rescue workers recovered Saturday the body of a fourth miner killed in a landslide at an illegal gold mine in western Colombia, with 12 others still missing.

The latest body was taken out in a white plastic bag and transferred to the nearby town of Santander de Quilichao, in Cauca department.

Carlos Ivan Marquez, a Red Cross official, confirmed the toll from Wednesday's landslide.

Rescuers said Friday they believe they have located bodies of the missing some 30 meters (100 feet) below the surface, with the aid of sniffer dogs.

Anguished relatives looked on from behind a security perimeter as half a dozen backhoes clawed at the earth to try to get to the missing.

Rescuers also donned white masks against the stench of decaying bodies that has begun to permeate the air.

"I'm waiting for them to retrieve my brother and his wife, who are buried below," said one miner at the site.

Another man surveying the recovery operation, Jesus Ovidio Carabali, 60, said five of his nephews perished in the pit below.

"I warned them not get involved" with the mining operation here, he said. "Now at least, they're beginning to be freed" from beneath the mountains of mud, Carabali added.

Miners had been laboring with hand tools to extract gold from the open pit mine when it was hit by an avalanche of mud, rock and earth.

The mine employed local men and women, sometimes from the same families, but neither the workers nor the facility were properly credentialed, officials said.

Colombia has more than 14,000 mines, more than half of which operate without proper permits, officials said. The government even has confiscated heavy excavation equipment at some illegal sites.

It was the second mining accident in Colombia in less than a week.

Last Saturday in the northwestern department of Antioquia, four miners died from inhaling toxic gas in an unlicensed mine.