More than 70 Colombian miners were trapped and all were feared dead today after an explosion ripped through a coal mine in what could become one of the Andean country's worst mining disasters, according to dpa. At least 16 bodies were pulled from the wreckage after the midnight gas explosion at the San Fernando mine in northwestern Antioquia province. The death toll was expected to rise as rescuers worked their way slowly down the mine shift. The blast occurred far from the major mining operations run by companies such as Drummond and Glencore near the Caribbean coast of the world's No. 5 coal exporter, which has output of 70 million tonnes a year and is enjoying a boom in investment. Relatives sobbed and hugged each other and anxiously pressed rescue workers for news as bodies wrapped in white sheets were carried from the wreckage to waiting hearses. "They have to give me some sign of hope," Gladys Gallego said as she waited for a loved one outside the mine. "Until they take him out I am not going home." Luz Amanda Pulido, a national disaster official, told local radio there was little chance any miners would be pulled out alive from the mine. "This is a huge tragedy," said President Alvaro Uribe, citing reports of 72 people trapped and 16 bodies recovered. A new accumulation of gas temporarily halted attempts to reach miners trapped 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) below the surface and rescue workers had only managed to work their way down 2,000 feet (600 meters) so far. Five miners died in the same mine during a flood two years ago, local media reported. Last year, a methane gas explosion in another Antioquia province coal mine killed eight workers and, in 2007, 31 miners were killed in an explosion Norte de Santander in one of the country's worst mining disasters. The blast at the small San Fernando, while one of the worst in Colombia's history, will not have a broad market impact because the mine is tiny and supplies the domestic market and some European traders, markets sources said. San Fernando mine produces 240,000 tonnes a year of thermal coal, according to Mines and Energy Minister Hernan Martinez.
