A collapse of a copper mine in Chile killed a worker, leaving five trapped underground, said authorities on Friday, forcing Chile’s state mining company to suspend operations in the affected areas of the world’s largest underground copper deposition.
Nine other miners suffered damage, said Chile’s National Copper Corp., known as Codelco, and described the incident as a result of “a seismic event.”
The US geological study reported an earthquake of 5 years in an area with central Chile, where Codelco’s el Teniente mine is located at 1 p.m. 17.34 local time on Thursday. Codelco reported that the shaking had a size of 4.2.
Authorities said they are still investigating whether it was a naturally occurring earthquake, or whether mining activity at Codelco’s flagship El Teniente Mine caused the earthquake. Chilean prosecutors also launched a criminal investigation to determine if any security standards were violated.
Chile’s National Disaster Service, Senapred, said shaking hit the Machalà municipality in the O’Higgins region, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the capital, Santiago.
Codelco identified the deceased as Paulo MarÃn Tapia and said he had worked on the Andesita project, a new 25-kilometer (15-mile) tunnel complex, ranging from El Tenientte-mine on the western slopes of the Andes. The extended section had only recently begun to produce copper.
The company said the search-and-rescue team had determined the exact location of the partial breakdown but could not communicate with the five caught workers. As the mountain shaking, Hauger of cliffs and dirt that fell in fell into the tunnel where the five miners worked and blocked all access routes to the places 900 meters underground.
It was not clear whether the workers were alive or dead, but Codelco emphasized that it treated its efforts as a rescue operation. The names of the caught miners were not released.
“We are doing everything to try to save these five miners,” said Andrés Music, General Manager of El Tenientte, detailed rescue operations involving 100 experts, including some, some of whom participated in the dramatic rescue of 33 caught miners in northern Chile – who, after 69 days, emerged alive and into the ramp light.
“The next 48 hours are crucial,” Music said.
Codelco stopped operations in the affected section of the copper mine and evacuated 3,000 people from the wider location to safe areas.
The company canceled a presentation of its financial results in the first half, which was set for Friday morning due to the rescue effort.
Chile, the world’s largest copper manufacturer, is also in the seismically active “Ring of Fire” that surrounds the banks of the Pacific.
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Associated Press writer Isabel Debre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
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