All five miners found dead after Chilean mine collapse
Handout picture released by Chile's presidency press office shows President Gabriel Boric speaking from CODELCO's Integrated Strategic Operations Center in Rancagua, Chile on Aug 3, 2025. (Photo: Handout via AFP/Chilean Presidency)
RANCAGUA, Chile: A rescue operation in Chile at the world's largest underground copper mine ended on Sunday (Aug 3) with no survivors, as the body of a fifth missing miner was found days after a tunnel collapsed, officials said.
"Today we finally found (dead) the last of the missing workers," Aquiles Cubillos, prosecutor for Chile's O'Higgins region, told reporters.
Operations at the El Teniente mining centre had been suspended since Friday after a "seismic event" caused the collapse of a tunnel the day before, trapping the five miners inside.
Whether the cause of the shaking was due to an earthquake or drilling remains under investigation.
El Teniente, which is operated by the Chilean state-owned mining firm Codelco, boasts more than 4,500km of tunnels and is the largest underground copper deposit in the world.
Last year, it produced 356,000 metric tonnes of copper - nearly 7 per cent of the total for Chile.
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.
