At least 14 people died in a mine flooding in El Callao, Venezuela after torrential rains hit the southeast region, authorities said on Monday.

A command post was set up to “coordinate operations to recover the 14 deceased,” led by Brigadier General Gregory González Acevedo, head of the Operational Zones for Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis (ZOEDAN) in Bolívar state.

Witnesses told reporters that the water flooded the mine upwards, like a volcano, after hours of torrential rains.

Despite rescue efforts from other miners, most of them inside the shaft did not make it out alive.

"A water volcano erupted upwards. There were three shafts in production that were the ones were the guys got stuck down there."

The deaths occurred in three different shafts of the “Cuatro Esquinas de Caratal” mine, located in town of El Callao, about 850 kilometers (528 miles) southeast of Caracas, the agency reported in a statement on its Instagram account.

Search and rescue operations began with “the pumping out of all the shafts in the area to lower the water level, and then evaluating rescue efforts” for the people trapped inside the gold mine, the statement added, without providing further details.

The death toll is based on other miners' testimony, fire fighters in El Callao said on social media. The vertical mines, known as ravines, became flooded, drowning miners inside.

Late Monday night, workers remained trying to get water out of the shaft and rescue operations to get out the bodies had not yet begun.

El Callao is a town where life depends on gold mining. Most of its 30-thousand inhabitants participate directly or indirectly in mining.

Venezuela is full of copper, diamond and other precious metal mining, where unsafe working conditions are common in the poorly regulated industry.