TUZLA: Four people believed to be illegal miners were feared dead after a landslide at an open-pit coal mine at Dubrave in northeast Bosnia, police and officials said on Sunday.
Several people were buried by the landslide late on Saturday and rescuers were trying to get to them, Tuzla police spokesman Izudin Saric told Reuters on telephone.
“Four people most probably died,” Saric said.
Mining inspector Nuraga Duranovic said at least four men are believed to have been buried by some 5,000 cubic meters of soil and rescues are working hard to dig them out.
The landslide at the Dubrave mine near the northern town of Tuzla took place late Saturday night and is believed to have been triggered by a 3.3-magnitude earthquake that had hit the area at the time. Duranovic said the men had entered the mine illegally, probably with the intention to steal coal.
Duranovic told state television the landslide was possibly caused by an earthquake that hit the area late on Saturday. He said the people were buried while illegally collecting coal from the surface dig, which was wide and could not be kept under permanent control.
Nobody from the mine management was immediately available to comment and reporters were not allowed to get close to the site. There was no suggestion that the lignite mine had closed. Saric said the area could not be approached with big machines because of mud and huge piles of earth.
“The rescuers will try to dig manually to reach them,” Saric said.
The mine at Dubrave is part of the Kreka coal mines, which produce coal for Bosnia’s largest power utility, EPBiH.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Stephen Powell)