Rescue teams in Chile are searching for five miners trapped after a partial collapse triggered by a tremor killed one colleague and halted operations at the world’s largest underground copper mine.
At least 100 people were involved in the perilous search effort, said Andres Music, general manager of El Teniente mine in Rancagua, some 100km (62 miles) south of Santiago.
“So far, we have not been able to communicate with them. The tunnels are closed, they are collapsed,” he told reporters on Friday.
The miners had been working at a depth of more than 900 metres when the collapse happened. Their exact location has been pinpointed with specialised equipment.
“We will do everything that is humanly possible to rescue the five trapped workers,” Maximo Pacheco, the president of Chile’s state-owned mining company Codelco, told a news conference on Friday afternoon.
“All of our experience, all of our knowledge, all of our energy and all of our strength are dedicated to this cause and to seeing this through,” he added.
Codelco cancelled a presentation of its first-half financial results, set for Friday morning, due to the rescue efforts.
Temporary closure
Mining minister Aurora Williams earlier announced the temporary cessation of activity at the mine, which began operating in the early 1900s and boasts more than 4,500km (some 2,800 miles) of underground tunnels.
Last year, El Teniente produced 356,000 tonnes of copper – nearly 7 percent of the total for Chile.
The cave-in happened after a “seismic event” on Thursday afternoon, of which the origin – natural or caused by drilling – is not yet known, according to authorities. The tremor registered a magnitude of 4.2.
“It is one of the biggest events, if not the biggest, that the El Teniente deposit has experienced in decades,” said Music, adding: “We are making every effort to try to rescue these five miners.”
“The next 48 hours are crucial,” the manager said.
The search team included several of the rescuers who participated in successfully surfacing 33 miners trapped in a mine for more than two months in the Atacama Desert in 2010, attracting a whirlwind of global media attention.
Chile is the world’s largest copper producer, responsible for nearly a quarter of global supply with about 5.3 million tonnes in 2024. Its mining industry is one of the safest on the planet, with a death rate of 0.02 percent last year, according to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile.
It also lies in the seismically active “Ring of Fire” that surrounds the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
