Two dead and 20 injured in Colorado mining accident
OURAY, Colo. — Two workers were killed and 20 others were injured Sunday in a mining accident near the southwestern Colorado town of Ouray.
The Ouray County sheriff’s office was called to the Revenue Virginius mine at about 7:20 a.m., county spokeswoman Marti Whitmore said. The miners were trapped underground and were confirmed dead Sunday afternoon.
“Anything that has been reported is speculative,” Whitmore said. “We don’t know what the cause is.”
Star Mine Operations, LLC, the owner of the mine, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, but Whitmore said the company has accounted for all of the workers at the site.
She said 20 people were taken to area hospitals, and all but two have been treated and released. The conditions of those two hospitalized workers haven’t been released.
Ouray is about 270 miles southwest of Denver.
The last major mining disaster in Colorado occurred on April 15, 1981, when an explosion killed 15 people at the Mid-Continent Dutch Creek No. 1 Mine near Redstone.
In 2000, a 37-year-old man was killed after being struck by a high-pressure hose that snapped off a piece of equipment in the Sanborn Creek Mine.
And in 2011, a New Mexico contract worker died after being hurt at the West Elk Coal Mine in Somerset, in western Colorado. The U.S. Mine and Safety Administration found the 53-year-old slipped and fell from a beam at a tower construction site.
