Eight killed, five missing in Colombia coal mine blast

News24xx.com - An explosion at an illegal coal mine in central Colombia killed at least eight people, as rescuers scrambled to find five others still missing, authorities said on Saturday, updating earlier figures.

The blast on Friday occurred at a coal mine in the town of Cucunuba in Cundinamarca state, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of Bogota, at about 2130 GMT.

One person was injured in the explosion, authorities said. Earlier reports listed two dead and 11 miners missing in the disaster.

A rescue crew of 35 miners and seven engineers has been working "around-the-clock" in a frantic search for the missing, the National Mining Agency (NMA) reported.

"We are going to dig by hand throughout the night to try to rescue the missing workers," Wilson Garcia, director of the emergency response unit in Cundinamarca, told AFP late Friday.

President Juan Manuel Santos, who was wrapping up a visit to France, used Twitter to express his "solidarity with the victims."