Two die after ‘landslide’ buries workers under 60 feet of coal, Colorado officials say

Two people were killed in Colorado after they were buried under a 60-foot pile of coal, local media reports.

Police in Pueblo received a call from the Comanche Power Plant at about 8:40 a.m. on June 2, saying that multiple people were trapped under the coal after a “landslide,” the Pueblo Police Department said in a Facebook post.

A technical rescue team from the Pueblo Fire Department was dispatched to the scene along with several teams with local law enforcement departments, police said.

Rescue officials arrived at the scene within 10 minutes of receiving the call, the Tribune News Service reported. But they found that they were unable to communicate directly with the people trapped, according to the outlet.

After spending the day searching for victims, rescue officials found the two men buried in the coal at 3 p.m. and later pulled their bodies out, The Associated Press reported.

One of the men was in his 20s and the other was in his 30s, Tribune News Service reported.

According to witnesses, the two men had been standing on the pile at a height of about 30 feet when the landslide occurred, a spokesman for the Pueblo Fire Department told The Guardian.

The power plant is owned and operated by the company Xcel Energy, the outlet reported. The two men were reportedly employees of a sub-contractor, Savage, that worked with the company, the Pueblo Police Department said.

All operations were pulled out of the area after the incident, Colorado Public Radio reported.

Xcel Energy, Savage, and the Pueblo Fire Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from McClatchy News.

Pueblo is about 115 miles south of Denver.

This story was originally published June 3, 2022 at 1:38 PM with the headline "Two die after ‘landslide’ buries workers under 60 feet of coal, Colorado officials say."