Three days of national mourning have been declared in Chile by the nation's president after the bodies of five workers were found in the wake of a collapse at the world's largest underground copper mine.
All five workers were trapped underground for 70 hours in the El Teniente mine, and the death toll now stands at six, including one person who died at the time of the accident on Thursday, according to the state-run mine operator, Codelco.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric held a press conference on Sunday, local time, to express his sorrow over the deaths, and declared that the nation would honour the miners who lost their lives and who he identified.
"With profound sorrow, the passing of Gonzalo Núñez Caroca, Álex Araya Acevedo, Carlos Arancibia Valenzuela, Jean Miranda Ibaceta, and Moisés Pavez Armijo, the workers trapped following the terrible accident at Codelco's El Teniente Division, has been confirmed," Mr Boric said in a post on X.
"I send a heartfelt embrace to their families, coworkers, and the entire mining community of our country in these difficult times.
"To honor their memory, I have decided to decree three days of national mourning starting today, Sunday the 3rd, Monday the 4th, and Tuesday the 5th of August. All of Chile stands with them.
"To the search and rescue teams, my recognition for their tireless work that made it possible to find all their colleagues. In an accident of this nature, it is essential to clarify the facts and hold accountable those responsible.
"For the miners and their families: there must be justice and clarification of what happened."
Codelco chair Maximo Pacheco said the company would convene international experts to investigate the cause and determine "what we did wrong".
The collapse was triggered by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded at the mine site, with the impact of a 5-magnitude tremor. It is still unclear if the cause was a natural quake in the highly seismic country or mining activity.
"We're the first ones who want to know what happened," Mr Pacheco told reporters at Codelco's offices in the city of Rancagua, near the mine in central Chile.
"This tragedy hits us hard."
[Mine map]Codelco is the world's biggest copper miner, and Chile is the largest global producer that supplies about a quarter of the world's red metal used in industries from construction to electronics.
Through the weekend, dozens of people placed candles, Chilean flags and photos of the trapped workers at a makeshift memorial outside the entrance to El Teniente.
The rescue effort began in earnest on Friday evening, once aftershocks from Thursday's tremor had subsided.
In Codelco's final update on Sunday afternoon on the rescue effort, it said it had cleared 25.5 metres of passages near El Teniente's new Andesita section, removing 3,270 metric tons of material through heavy machinery operated remotely.
Codelco discovered the first trapped worker on Saturday and the remaining four throughout the day on Sunday, working with a rescue team of about 100 people.
Aquiles Cubillos, the lead prosecutor in Chile's O'Higgins region, said the body of Moises Pavez, the last miner to remain missing, was found at 3:30pm.
The trapped miners were located by using GPS devices, but rescue teams were not able to communicate with them.
Mining Minister Aurora Williams said the labour ministry and mining regulator, Sernageomin, would evaluate when it was safe for operations to resume at El Teniente, Codelco's flagship mine that last year produced 356,000mt of copper.
El Teniente, which is more than a century old and boasts the world's largest underground copper deposit, spans more than 4,500 kilometres of tunnels and underground galleries — nearly the distance between Chile and New York City — in the Andes Mountains, about 75km south-east of Chile's capita,l Santiago.
Chile's mining industry is considered among the safest in the world, with a fatality rate of 0.02 per cent in 2024, according to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile.
ABC/Wires
