By Horaci Garcia and Nacho Doce
SURIA, Spain (Reuters) -Three workers were killed in an underground collapse in northeastern Spain at one of Western Europe’s largest potash mines on Thursday, regional union USOC said.
The collapse at the mine in the town of Suria occurred just before 9 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) about 900 metres (984.25 yards) underground, firefighters said, without going into further details.
Two of the dead were students at the Polytechnical University of Catalonia, the university said on Twitter.
“We want to send our deepest condolences to the families of the three colleagues who lost their lives this morning doing their work,” USOC said.
Firefighters had erected a large tent outside the mine, while the company’s flag was flying at half mast and a rescue helicopter flew overhead.
Tel Aviv-based ICL Group Ltd, whose subsidiary Iberpotash operates the mine, said there had been an “unfortunate underground accident”, in a statement released before the deaths were announced.
Authorities are unable for now to confirm the casualties but fear the worst, Joan Ignasi Elena, head of the interior department at the Catalan regional government, told a news conference. He said they could not identify the miners until they were reached, which could take several hours.
The remaining workers at the mine were evacuated, he added.
The mine is about 80 km (50 miles) north of Barcelona. Catalonia’s business department top official Roger Torrent said it had passed a safety inspection in February.
In December 2013, Iberpotash said two of its workers died after a mine collapse in Suria.
Local media reported that a worker was struck by a rock and died in June 2020 at the company’s Vilafruns mine in Barcelona province. Three weeks later, a miner was killed in a similar accident. The Vilafruns mine was shut down that year.
Potash is used as a fertilizer in agriculture and as a raw material in industries such as pharmaceutical, explosives, glassmaking and chemicals.
Potash prices have soared in the past year after the European Union sanctioned major supplier Belarus over its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Horaci Garcia, Nacho Doce and Joan Faus, additional reporting by Steven Scheer in Jerusalem and , David Latona and Aislinn Laing in Madrid; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Inti Landauro, Angus MacSwan and Tomasz Janowski)
