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Events/Disaster · 2010

Copiapo San Jose mine collapse and rescue

Disaster, 2010-08-05, Chile.

What happened

A collapse at the San Jose mine near Copiapo on 5 August 2010 trapped 33 miners about 700 m underground. All were brought out alive by 13 October 2010, after 69 days.1,2,3

Why it matters

The rescue ended 69 days after the collapse, with all 33 men alive.1,2,3

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Roros Mining Town inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.4

  2. Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines formed

    ZCCM was the vehicle for state ownership and later for the privatisation of the Copperbelt.5,6

  3. Privatisation of ZCCM weakens TAZARA's copper traffic

    More copper then went by road along southern routes and the Tanzam highway.7,8

  4. Northparkes block cave air blast

    Northparkes was the first block caving mine in Australia, and the Coroner's findings shaped how block caving is regulated there.9,10

  5. BHP leaves Ok Tedi after river damage claims

    It links a miner's exit from a mine to claims over river damage.11,12

  6. Sewell Mining Town inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.13

  7. Glencore completes merger with Xstrata

    The merger joined a large trading house with a large mining group.14,15

  8. Mount Polley tailings dam breach

    The panel reported on 30 January 2015 and made recommendations to reduce the chance of tailings failures.16,17

Open the full timeline

Where next

People

Worked hereLuis UrzuaShift foreman of the 33 men trapped when the San Jose mine collapsed.18Worked hereMario GomezEldest of the 33 trapped men; wrote the note tied to the rescue probe.19

Places

Located inCopiapoSee the nearby place: Copiapo.1

Sources

  1. Chilean miners: families camp at Camp Hope (25 Aug 2010) The Guardian
  2. Chilean miner Luis Urzua interview (14 Oct 2010) The Guardian
  3. 2010 Copiapó mining accident (item Q214790), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  4. Roros Mining Town and the Circumference UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  5. About ZCCM-IH (history) ZCCM Investments Holdings
  6. Copperbelt Province (item Q1131523), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  7. 'Win-win' contested: negotiating the privatisation of Africa's Freedom Railway with the 'Chinese of today' Journal of Modern African Studies 59(1) (Cambridge University Press)
  8. Wikidata item Q239580 (Kitwe)
  9. 1999 Northparkes Air Blast case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  10. Parkes (item Q605513), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  11. BHP lawsuit re Papua New Guinea (Ok Tedi) Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
  12. Ok Tedi environmental disaster (item Q7081685), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  13. Sewell Mining Town UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  14. Glencore timeline
  15. Baar (item Q64087), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  16. Final report media release (30 Jan 2015) and report PDF Mount Polley Independent Expert Engineering Investigation and Review Panel
  17. Mount Polley mine (item Q107703678), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  18. Luis Urzua, the foreman keeping hope alive for Chile's trapped miners The Guardian (Jonathan Franklin, 5 Sep 2010)
  19. Chilean miners found alive - but rescue will take four months The Guardian (Haroon Siddique and agencies, 23 Aug 2010)

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0; Drilling and blasting by Siim Roov, CC BY-SA 4.0; Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0. Pictures: Escondida Mine, Chile, NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)).