Rescue teams intensified their research on Friday to find five minors trapped in Chile after a collapse that killed the largest underground mine in the world.
The accident occurred Thursday afternoon in the copper mine of El Teniente following a “seismic event” whose origin – natural or caused by boreholes – is still being studied.
Mine activities have been suspended.
The Mine of the Public Group Codelco produces 356,000 tonnes per year, or 6.7% of copper production in Chile, the world’s leading supplier of this metal.
“We will do everything that is humanly possible to save the five workers trapped. All our experience, all our knowledge, all our energy, all our strength are put at the service of this cause and this objective,” said Maximo Pacheco, president of Code, at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
Blocked minors worked on the extension of this mine some 1,200 meters deep. The operation has 4,500 kilometers of galleries.
More than a hundred rescuers participate in the operation, said the Director General of the Andres Music mine. They know the exact place in which workers trapped in El Teniente are, because they have location devices, but have not yet managed to establish contact, he said.
“The galleries are closed, they are collapsed,” he said at a press conference.
Michael Miranda, a brother of one of the minors, told AFP that families had not been informed of how the accident had occurred.
“They did not explain anything to us. No one approached to talk about it, to tell us if my brother is fine or not, if he is accompanied or not,” he deplored in front of the codelco offices in the city of Rancagua, 100 kilometers south of Santiago.
The wife of this minor is pregnant “and no one in the company has contacted her. No psychological support, nothing,” he added.
– Very delicate work –
The next 48 hours are crucial for research operations, in which some rescuers participated who had been able to save 33 minors blocked for 69 days at more than 600 mothers in depth in a mine of the Atacama desert in 2010.
According to Mr. Pacheco, the rescue work consists in removing the equipment accumulated in the gallery where workers are trapped. They were located thanks to the electronic devices they carried on them.
“We are doing this work with autonomous and intelligent, remote-controlled equipment, and a very specialized rescue team, because it is an extraordinarily delicate work,” he explained.
The shock, with a magnitude of 4.2 according to the statements, caused the death of a worker and injured nine others.
“This is one of the most serious, if not serious events, that the El Teniente site has known for decades,” said the director of the mine.
“What we want here is that they conduct an in -depth investigation. (…) We have reported many irregularities,” said José Maldonado, union leader of El Teniente.
“The mountain is already saturated and begins to collapse”, which would have caused a subsidence and not an earthquake, he accused.
Chile is the world’s largest producer of copper, with 5.3 million tonnes in 2024. Its mining industry is one of the safest in the world. Last year, the mortality rate was 0.02%, according to the national geology and mines department.
Posted on August 2 at 4:21 a.m., AFP
