Chilean mine collapses and kills five miners
On July 28, 2025, the El Teniente mine located in Chile collapsed because of a magnitude 4.2 earthquake, causing five miners to die.
The Company that owns the mine, called Codelco, immediately shut down the mine after it collapsed. Codelco sent many rescuers to search for survivors who might be trapped in the mine. On August 3, 2025, Codelco’s searchers found five dead bodies and identified two of the dead, one was called Paulo Marín Tapia, and the other named Gonzalo Núñez Caroca. The rescuers had to dig 78 feet to reach the dead!
The Chilean prosecutors were suspicious of whether the collapse of the mine was caused by tremors of mining machines or the earthquake, so they searched them to see if they violated any safety laws. But Codelco also claims that the mine fell due to the magnitude 4.2 earthquake. Codelco halted operations at the damaged parts of the mine and evacuated 3,000 people from nearby to safe areas.
“Today we finally found dead the last of the missing workers,” said Aquilles Cubillos, the prosecutor for Chile’s O’Higgins region. The search for survivors in the mine was not the result everyone hoped for; every missing miner had been found dead. “We deeply regret this outcome,” Cubillos said. All the bodies were found forty-three miles( 70 kilometers ) southeast of Santiago, the capital of Chile.
Chile’s mining industry is widely known as one of the safest mines ever, with according to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile. The El Teniente mine began operating in the early 1900s and has dug out 4,500 kilometers( 2,800 miles ) of tunnels in the mine.
The miners had been working at 900 meters under the ground when the El Teniente mine collapsed, killing one miner immediately, while the others died after. The trackers have been used to pinpoint the exact position and location of the miners.
The mine’s general manager, Andres Music, stated, “It is one of the biggest events, if not the biggest, that the El Teniente mine has experienced in decades.”