All five trapped workers who were missing in a collapsed shaft in the world’s biggest underground copper mine have been found dead, an official said on Sunday.
Aquiles Cubillos, the lead prosecutor in Chile’s O’Higgins region, said the body of Moisés Pavez, the last miner to remain missing, was found at 3.30pm local time by rescue teams. They had drilled through dozens of meters of rock to reach the stranded workers.
“We deeply regret this outcome,” Cubillos said.
The five miners – Gonzalo Núñez, Jean Miranda, Alex Araya, Carlos Arancibia, and Pávez were trapped deep inside Chile’s El Teniente mine on Thursday after a section collapsed following a 4.2 magnitude earthquake that instantly killed miner Paulo Marín and injured nine other workers.
The trapped miners were located by using GPS devices but rescue teams were not able to communicate with them.
Authorities are investigating whether it was a naturally occurring earthquake or whether mining activity at El Teniente caused the tremor. Chilean prosecutors also launched a criminal investigation to determine whether any safety standards were violated.
El Teniente, located in the Andes mountains in central Chile, is the world’s largest underground copper mine and is owned by state company Codelco.
Shortly after Thursday’s collapse, Codelco halted operations in the affected section of the mine and evacuated 3,000 people from the broader site to safe areas.
The company cancelled a presentation of its first-half financial results, set for Friday morning, due to the rescue efforts.
Chile, the world’s biggest copper producer, lies in the seismically active Ring of Fire that surrounds the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
In 2010, Chile’s government rescued 33 miners trapped in a copper mine in the country’s north for two months in a dramatic operation that made global headlines and was later depicted in a Hollywood movie.
