At least five people were killed and four others injured on 2025-03-31 after an explosion at the Cerredo mine in Degaña, in Spain's northern Asturias region, according to officials and emergency services.
The blast happened at about 09:30 local time, roughly 450 kilometres north-west of Madrid, when emergency services were called to what they described as a problem involving a machine at the site. Ambulances, fire crews and mountain rescue teams were sent to the scene as responders worked through the aftermath of the explosion.
Authorities said two people were initially reported missing but were accounted for by early afternoon. The five people who died were all residents of Spain's north-western province of León and were aged between 32 and 54, according to the Spanish government's delegation in Asturias. The injured were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
The mine is in a part of Spain with a long industrial history, and local reporting cited officials as saying workers had been at the site under a permit to extract minerals for graphite production. ABC España said the mine had previously been a major operation before closing in 2018 and had since been intermittently used by private companies to extract anthracite. Those details were reported locally and have not been independently verified in the official statements released so far.
The accident immediately raised questions about what activity was being carried out underground and how many workers were present when the explosion occurred. Officials have not said how many people were inside the mine at the time.
Asturias president Adrián Barbón ordered two days of mourning in the region after the deaths were confirmed. The regional civil protection plan was activated at its lowest level, indicating a localised emergency that authorities believed could be controlled with available resources.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent condolences to the families of the victims and wished a swift recovery to those injured. The statement from Madrid reflected the scale of concern around a disaster that has revived attention on mine safety in a region shaped by generations of coal extraction.
For now, the cause of the blast remains unclear. Emergency services had initially framed the call-out as a technical problem, but the deadly outcome has turned the incident into a criminal and safety investigation as well as a rescue operation. The immediate priority for responders was to secure the site, account for all personnel and determine whether any additional hazards remained underground.
Spain has seen the Cerredo mine reappear in public debate before, but the focus now is on the victims, the injured and the sequence of events that led a routine call about machinery into one of the country’s deadliest mining accidents in recent years.
