Trapped miners

Rescue workers in South Wales have ended their operation after a fourth body was discovered at a coal mine that was hit by flash flooding early on Thursday.

South Wales chief constable Peter Vaughan described the discovery "the one that none of us wanted."

Officials say they do not know what caused the flooding at the Gleision Colliery near Swansea, and they will now turn their efforts to investigating what happened.

Three other men escaped from the small colliery in the Swansea Valley following the accident on Thursday and one was taken to hospital. They said a wall to an old section of the mine had failed, flooding the main 250-meter (820-foot) shaft leading into the mine.

"Desperately sad situation"

British Prime Minister David Cameron said it was a "desperately, desperately sad situation."

South Wales was once known for its coal mining, but the industry was virtually eradicated by one of Cameron's predecessors, Margaret Thatcher, and her conservative government of the 1980s.

"We thought the days of mining accidents were behind us," said Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones, "but we were wrong."

Gleision Colliery is a private mine operating under a steep hillside above the banks of the River Tawe.

The worst mining accident in British history was in 1913 at the Senghenydd colliery, when 439 miners were killed after a gas explosion.

Author: Zulfikar Abbany (Reuters, AFP)
Editor: Andreas Illmer