Fatal accident hits Codelco's upper copper mine in Chili | Company Business News

(Bloomberg) – The world’s no. 1 Copper Producer Codelco is relinquishing a fatal accident, saying that an earthquake has caused a collapse at a new portion of its largest mine, with five people trapped underground. One person was confirmed to death and nine were injured. Another five is the subject of a rescue effort that calls comparisons to the liberation of 33 trapped miners in Chile half and a half ago. CEO Ruben Alvarado is on site coordinating efforts and will be joined by Minister of Mining Aurora Williams, the government said on Friday. The accident happened on Thursday afternoon at the El Teniente division, in a division called Andesita that just started producing buyer and which would shoot up in the coming years. Activities in the area were discontinued, with hundreds evacuated. Mine in Chile is designed to withstand much stronger seismic activity than the 4.2-forces event registered on Thursday. An investigation is underway. The deadly collapse is the latest setback for Codelco, which is struggling to recover from a long -standing slump in the output. The state-owned Behemoth is trying to record some late and too many budget projects to review its aging operations and retain its status as the world’s largest copper provider. “The most important impact is the delay in the ramp of the Andesita project, where the accident occurred, as the production committed from the sector this year was low, although its participation is more important in the coming years,” says Juan Ignacio Guzmán, head of GEM, a mineral consulting firm in Chile. Codelco canceled a presentation of its results in the first half, scheduled for Friday morning, with CEO, Alvarado focused on events at El Teniente. Alvarado’s predecessor at Codelco, Andre Sougarret, was the engineer who led the rescue of trapped miners at the San Jose mine in northern Chile in 2010. Paulo Marín, an employee of contractor Salfa Montajes, died in the collapse in El Teniente. Nine other people sustained injuries, none of their life -threatening. Earlier, the EL Mercurio newspaper reported that the five trapped workers had died. It was not confirmed by Codelco, which sees his efforts as rescue. The company has not yet had contact with the captured workers, but knows what their exact location is, the head of Andrés Music told reporters on Friday. The next 48 hours are very important for a rescue effort consisting of 100 people, some of whom participated in the 33 miners’ liberation in 2010, Music said. While Codelco has made its mines much safer over the past few years as part of an operating -wide security pus, accidents still affect the development and operations of the project. Last year, Codelco’s Radomiro Tomic Open Pit was the scene of a fatal accident that led to extensive production disruptions, while a worker at the Ventanas division died in an accident while repairing a warehouse roof. In 2023, an electrical technician died at El Teniente. (Add the government’s comments in the second paragraph) More stories like this are available on Bloomberg.com © 2025 Bloomberg LP