After rescue teams cleared more than 24 meters (78 feet) of underground passages that had collapsed in a powerful earthquake last week, all five workers at a copper mine in Chile were discovered dead, according to a regional prosecutor.
The El Teniente copper mine’s Prosecutor Aquiles Cubillo reported on Sunday that the body of the fifth trapped worker had been discovered.
Rancagua, which is located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Santiago, was home to more than 100 people who had been searching for workers at the world’s largest underground mine, El Teniente Copper Mine.
“We regret this outcome a lot,” Cubillos said.
The most recent death brings the accident’s total to six, with the most recent death coming from a person who was killed on Thursday evening.
The first trapped worker was found on Saturday, followed by another three on Sunday, at Chile’s state-owned mining company Codelco. The final worker has not yet been commented on.
One colleague was killed and operations at the site were suspended as a result of the collapse, which occurred at a depth of more than 900 meters. Their precise location had been verified using advanced equipment.
Aurora Williams, the mine’s mining minister, announced a temporary stoppage on Saturday.
More than 4,500 kilometers (some 2, 800 miles) of underground tunnels make up the mine’s early 1900s, which first started operating.
El Teniente produced 356, 000 tonnes of copper last year, accounting for nearly 7% of Chile’s total.
The cave-in occurred on Thursday afternoon following a “seismic event” whose source, which was unknown at the time, was a drilling incident, according to the authorities on Saturday. The magnitude of the tremor was 4.2%.
The El Teniente deposit’s general manager Andres Music said in a statement that it is “one of the biggest events, if not the biggest,” if not the biggest, it has ever experienced.
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 the world’s supply.
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.
The seismically active “Ring of Fire” that encircles the Pacific Ocean’s shores also contains it.
Source: Aljazeera
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