Five miners have been missing since a partial collapse caused by a tremor, which also caused the world’s largest underground copper mine to shut down operations in Chile.
The risky search effort involved at least 100 people, according to Andres Music, general manager of the El Teniente mine in Rancagua, which is located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Santiago.
We haven’t been able to communicate with them so far. He told reporters on Friday that the tunnels are closed and have collapsed.
The collapse occurred while the miners were excavating more than 900 meters of work. Their precise location has been mapped out using advanced equipment.
The president of Chile’s state-owned mining company Codelco, Maximo Pacheco, stated at a press conference on Friday afternoon that “we will do everything in humanly possible to rescue the five trapped workers.”
“To this cause and to seeing this through,” he continued, adding that all of our experience, knowledge, energy, and strength are dedicated to it.
Due to the rescue efforts, Codelco had to postpone a presentation of its first-half financial results that had been scheduled for Friday morning.
temporary restraint
More than 4,500km (some 2, 800 miles) of underground tunnels are contained in the mining minister’s earlier announcement that the mine’s temporary closure was imminent. Its operation began in the early 1900s.
El Teniente produced 356, 000 tonnes of copper last year, accounting for nearly 7% of Chile’s total.
Authorities believe the cave-in occurred on Thursday afternoon following a “seismic event” whose natural or induced by drilling is not yet known. The magnitude of the tremor was 4.2%.
The El Teniente deposit has experienced one of the biggest events in recent memory, if not the biggest, according to Music, who added, “We are making every effort to try to rescue these five miners.”
The manager remarked, “The next 48 hours are crucial.”
In 2010, a search team that included several of the rescuers who had been stranded in a mine for more than two months in the Atacama Desert attracted a slew of international media attention.
With a production of about 5.3 million tonnes in 2024, Chile is the biggest copper producer in the world, accounting for nearly a quarter of that amount. According to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile, its mining sector had a death rate of 0.02 percent last year, making it one of the safest on earth.
Source: Aljazeera
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