SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chile’s Codelco has suspended contracts with third-party workers at its flagship El Teniente copper mine through at least August 13, as it seeks approval to reopen ten sections of the mine following a collapse last week, it said on Friday.
Six people died from a major tremor on July 31 that caused tunnels to cave in surrounding the new Andesita section of the vast mine.
Codelco said in a statement that the suspended labor contracts applied to all companies directly related to the incident, and that it had sent further information to mining regulator Sernageomin in a bid to reopen ten “work areas” of the mine. It did not specify which areas.
Aquiles Cubillos, the prosecutor for the O’Higgins region, has said 3,700 meters (3.7 km) of passageways had been damaged in the collapse, far more than 700 meters initially estimated by the company. He has not specified the severity of the damage, but said it affected two or three areas of Andesita, and five or six areas of the Recursos Norte unit.
El Teniente has about 4,500 kilometers of tunnels deep within the Andes mountains.
On Friday, Cubillos’ team reviewed four damaged levels of the mine, which do not include the ones where the injuries and deaths occurred, and met with Codelco technical experts, he said.
Investigators are documenting the places with photos to be able to later piece together a full map of the damage.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft)
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