Three Spanish geologists died when a tunnel collapsed inside a potash mine in northeast of spain on Thursday, authorities said.
The accident occurred inside the Cabanasses de Sรกria mine shortly before 9 a.m., at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet, local authorities said. Efforts were underway to secure the mine, some 80 kilometers 50 miles northwest of Barcelona, โโand recover the bodies, they said.
The mine is operated by ICL Iberia, the Spanish subsidiary of the Tel Aviv-based ICL Group. A Spanish company official confirmed that the three men were Spanish and experienced geologists, and that two of them were postgraduate students at the Manresa engineering school of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
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A minute of silence was observed at the university on Thursday afternoon.
Mine employee Carlos Arnaldo said the collapsed section was only built "a few days ago." The business manager of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Roger Torrent, stated that the mine had periodically passed safety inspections. โThe controls were regular. The last one was three weeks ago,โ Torrent said.
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Two workers died in similar circumstances at the same mine a decade ago.
The Catalan regional president, Pere Aragรณn, offered his condolences to the families affected by the "tragic accident". The regional government announced an investigation and a judicial inquiry was also opened.
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Some 20,000 people work in the Spanish mining sector, according to statistics from the Ministry of Energy, a figure that has been halved in the last two decades.
Between 2016 and 2021, the latest year for which statistics are available, an average of four mine workers died annually in the southern European country.
