Intro:
- Began Thursday August 5th, 2010
- Cave-in at 121-year-old San Jose copper/gold mine
- Located in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile
- 33 men trapped (Called “los 33”) 700 meters underground, 3 miles from the entrance
- All men survived
- Trapped for 69 days until rescue (October 13th, 2010)
Cause:
Damage:
- Previous geological instability
- Mine had been fined extensively from 2004-2010 for breaching safety regulations
- Prior to collapse the mine ignored warnings over unsafe working conditions
- Shut down temporarily in 2007 after an accident
- Responsibility rests in the owners of the mine (San Esteban Mining Company)
Damage:
- Cave- in: roof collapse
- Tried to escape through ventilation shafts but ladders were missing, later because insignificant due to ground movements
- Spiraling shaft instead of a vertical mineshaft or elevator system made it difficult for rescue
- Aftermath
- 18 mines in Chile were shut down and 300 threatened to be shut down
- Lawsuit filed against San Esteban Mining Company. Judge froze $2 million of its assets.
- San Jose mine is closed and has remained closed as of December 2010
What Have We learned from the Copiapó Mining Accident
- The owners of the mine (San Esteban Mining Company) knew that their mine was unsafe but continued to stay in operation.
- They were fined 42 times from 2004-2010 and shut down temporarily in 2007.
- This whole situation was avoidable and the in the future other mine owners can see San Esteban Mining Company’s mistake and make sure they do not do the same.
What can we do to prevent accidents like this from happening again?
- Regulatory and oversight measures
- Existing regulation needs to be increased and new legislation must be written.
- As technological advances are brought to the mines, safety will be increased as well.
- Placing human lives and the environment ahead of company profits is a sure-fire way to avoid deadly and costly disasters
- Natural disasters can be prevented through proper waste management and increased company accountability and oversight.
Cleanup?
- The owners of the mines have people on standby that can quickly diffuse the problem.
- Owners need to know ahead of time which private companies are going to assist in the efforts in cleanup or response.
- Murray and Roberts, the company responsible for providing the drills used to reach the Chilean miners last year, is an example of one of these companies that would be able to provide resources and services to increase the response time.
Safety, Storage, Transport & Distribution
- Need for safety legislation within coal mines.
- Safety regulations for a mine rely upon the employer, those safety regulations can vary greatly.
- While larger mining operations tend to have much safer regulations, the smaller ones tend to be much more dangerous.
- By increasing these regulations across the board the industry as a whole would improve the safety of their operations.
Information Available Following the Accident
- The media is always quick to respond to inform as many possible of the disaster.
- All the information that can be gathered should be recorded and stored on both file and immediate access on the internet.
- As much information should be obtained from the disaster site and made available, so in the future people (and coal miners) can understand how to avoid such catastrophes and make sure the same mistakes are never made twice.