Coal Mining Accident In Mexico Kills Six

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — Authorities say six miners were killed and another was rescued alive Friday after an accident in a coal mine in Mexico.

The accident, which took place in the northern state of Coahuila at 10:15am local time, was reportedly caused by a gas blast that caused a cave-in and 100 tons of coal to collapse onto the miners.

About 200 people were working in the mine at the time of the incident. Most were quickly evacuated.

The company running the mine, Altos Hornos de Mexico, said the men were trapped when 100 tons of coal and rock collapsed. It further noted that the rock fall had been caused by “a pocket of methane gas,” and not an explosion.

“Seven were trapped, one of them was rescued alive but unfortunately six were buried under the coal,” Francisco Orduna, representative of the Coahuila state civil defense office in the coal-mining region, told the AP.

The rescued miner has been hospitalized and is in stable condition.

Unfortunately the recent coal mining accident isn’t the first in Mexico this year.

BBC News reports that on July 25, seven miners, all from the same family, were killed in a mine in the same area after methane gas caused a tunnel to collapse 256 feet underground.

Men have mined the largely unregulated, small “pozito” mines that dot Coahuila for more than a century, Fox News notes.

A 2006 methane explosion at the much larger Piedras Negras mine, owned by Grupo Mexico, killed 65 miners.