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6 February, 2006
In Canada, joint union-management rescue teams succeeded in bringing 72 potash miners who were trapped one kilometre deep in Saskatchewan province to safety. The incident occurred on 29 January when a fire started inside the world’s largest potash mine, owned by US-based Mosaic Co., which is controlled by giant foods group Cargill.
Mine rescue teams from Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union Locals 890 and 892 began tried and tested methods of progressive procedures to rescue the 72 after being trapped for 25 hours. The miners had retreated to sealed refuge stations after the fire—caused by a cutting torch—that ignited polyethylene piping.
Union-management rescue teams, backed by similar rescue teams from nearby unionised potash mines, extinguished the suffocating fires, reached the miners, cautiously vented toxic gas and smoke, and then brought the 72 safely to the surface. The mine has 3,000 miles of underground roads and tunnels covering a 20-mile-wide surface area.
“It really looks like a textbook recovery to me,” one former US mine director observed. The trapped miners, however, were unimpressed by the food inside the wet-clay-sealed refuge stations. “Ample water but the food sucks … dry biscuits that are like eating gravel or sand,” complained one miner in a local newspaper.