Two workers were killed and 20 others were injured in an accident at the Revenue Virginius mine near the southwestern Colorado town of Ouray.
Ouray County spokeswoman Marti Whitmore said the sheriff's office was called to the mine at about 7:20 a.m. Sunday. The miners were trapped underground, and they were confirmed dead Sunday afternoon,
according to The Associated Press.
Star Mine Operations, LLC, the owner of the mine, could not be reached for comment, but Whitmore says the company has accounted for all of the workers at the site.
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She said 20 people were taken to area hospitals, and all but two have been treated and released. The circumstances of the accident and the conditions of the hospitalized workers have not been released.
"Anything that has been reported is speculative," Whitmore said. "We don't know what the cause is."
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.
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