Body of last trapped miner recovered
Collapse in tunnel occurred due to a seismic event
Cause for Seismic Event under investigation
El Teniente mining centre located in the Andes mountain range in Chile collapsed on Friday due to a "seismic event", trapping five mining workers inside. The search operation for the workers ended on Sunday when the last worker remaining was found dead.
The collapse of some of the tunnels was caused by a 4.2 magnitude tremor on Thursday. Miners had been working deep below the surface. Whether the cause of the shaking was due to an earthquake or drilling remains under investigation. Operations at the mining center had been suspended since Friday after the tremors
"Today we finally found [dead] the last of the missing workers," Aquiles Cubillos, prosecutor for Chile's O'Higgins region, told reporters.
The four other bodies had been discovered on Saturday and earlier on Sunday during a desperate search in collapsed mine tunnels, about 70km (43 miles) south-east of the capital Santiago. The overall death toll is now confirmed at six, as another person was killed at the time of the incident on Thursday reported BBC
El Teniente, which is operated by the Chilean state-owned mining firm Codelco, boasts of having more than 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) of tunnels and is the largest underground copper deposit in the world. It is located high in the Andes mountains in central Chile.
Codelco has so far named two of the victims - Paulo Marín and Gonzalo Núñez Caroca - but said the others were yet to be identified "by the relevant authorities".
"We share the anguish this situation causes their families and the entire community," the copper mining company said.
Chile's mining industry is considered among the safest in the world, with a fatality rate of 0.02 percent in 2024, according to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile.
