Nearly 200 lifeguards are working at the scene to control the emergency.
At least a woman died and 29 people were injured due to the explosion in a gunpowder factory and fireworks in the municipality Colombian from Soacha, a neighbor of the capital Bogotá, the authorities reported. The event occurred on the afternoon of May 22.
“We had a incident in the company ‘The cowboy’. (…) We have a report of 29 injured, two in critical conditionand one deceased person, a woman,” the mayor of the town, Juan Sánchez Perico, told reporters.
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The detonation, whose origin is investigated, shook an industrial area at 4:38 p.m. local time (21:38 GMT). In the affected factory there were 150 workers who “were evacuated,” said the mayor.
80% of the fire was controlled
Aerial images shared by local media W Radio show the emergency services fighting with several Tank trucks the fire inside the building.
“Until now, the 80% of the emergency it’s found controlled“said Sánchez, specifying that more than 200 lifeguards They are in place.
The authorities of the neighboring capital of the country mobilized a team of “19 firefighters2 fire extinguishing machines, 2 tank trucks and 1 hazardous materials machine” to collaborate with the work, Mayor Luis Carlos Galán reported on the social network X.
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According to videos published on social networks by residents of the sector, the burst caused a huge column of smoke that towered over the populous town, located south of Bogotá.
The windows of the nearby homes they turned out destroyedas other recordings provided to AFP by firefighters show.
