Romania’s Praid salt mine in Praid has been flooded in the mining and tourist areas after the dike built underground collapsed following heavy rains in recent weeks, causing the Corund stream bed to burst its banks, IPN reports.

The announcement was made by the National Salt Company in a statement and comes a day after staff inside the salt works, including those still trying to build dykes in the tourist area, were withdrawn.

“It is so severely damaged that any movement of machinery would mean endangering human life and we cannot afford that. Unfortunately, we have to wait for the water flow to return to normal so that we can assess what works can be carried out on the surface,” Harghita prefect Petres Sandor told HotNews.ro.

At the beginning of May the problems at the Praid Saltworks started, and in the last few days they have worsened. Two days ago the water started to enter the saltworks, and the county prefect declared that the “battle with nature has been lost”.

The Romanian company “SALROM”, the only salt producer on the Prut, has announced that “the Telegdy mining sector can no longer be saved from the water intrusion. Underground salt stocks have been compromised, including equipment and machinery that can no longer be recovered”.