4 October, 2010
With the rescue of 33 trapped Chilean miners perhaps only two weeks away, early October events at the San José mine near Copiapó in northern Chile centered on activity on the surface and in courtrooms. Relatives of 27 of the 33 miners filed lawsuits last week against both the government and Campañia Minera San Esteban Primera seeking a total of US$12 million while in a separate court case, a Northern Region III prosecutor brought criminal charges against San Esteban’s two owners, plus the mine manager and operations manager over a 5 July rock slide in which a miner lost a leg.
Meanwhile, a group of Chilean trade unions from the mining, metals, and energy sectors, after conducting two days of meetings in Copiapó in late August, issued a terse manifesto holding the government responsible for safety lapses inside the San José mine. That manifesto cites the inherent flaws inside Chile’s diverse workplace safety system, a system that excludes participatory roles for workers and their trade unions on safety matters.
The Chilean trade unions drafting the manifesto also cite a government that is unwilling to engage in tri-partite dialogue to improve mine safety conditions, including refusing initiatives to discuss ratification of ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention. That manifesto, in Spanish, can be seen here.
The ICEM today sent a second letter to Chile’s government regarding the San José tragedy, this time to Mining Minister Laurence Golborne calling on the government to revamp its preventative safety practices. That letter can be accessed here.
Scene at San José on 5 August
The lawsuit filed 30 September by the relatives of the 27 calls for damages totaling US$10 million against the company, and another US$2 million against the government and a state regulatory agency, the National Geological and Mines Services, for allowing the San José mine to reopen in 2008 following a fatal accident in 2007.
The criminal case by a miner who had his leg amputated from a rock slide in July was brought against San Esteban owners Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny, mine manager Pedro Simunovic, and operations manager Carlos Pinilla. The regional public prosecutor of Atacama ordered the four not to leave the country during a 90-day investigation of the incident.
The 33 miners are in relatively good health and trapped 700 metres underground. The rescue by three separate drilling rigs (see prior ICEM dispatch here) continues with the Schramm T-130 drill advancing to 428 metres over the weekend in the widening of a smaller hole it made two weeks ago.
That drill was idled on Saturday, 2 October, for a change in parts, but continued drilling yesterday. A larger oil drilling rig, called Rig 421, is making a single bore in hopes of coming to an area near where the miners are trapped. But Rig 421 drilling stopped over the weekend so technicians could change the directional course. The smaller mine drilling rig, a Strata 950 Riasebore drill, has been temporarily idled, but is due to restart its mission this week.
Once a hole 66 centimeters across is made that reaches near where the miners are, it will take about eight days to erect a metal framing encasement – from both above and below – for a rescue capsule to fit that will take each miner to the surface. It is expected that all three holes will be fitted in the event a failure occurs in one.
The miners became trapped on 5 August, following an underground explosion that caused mine shafts to collapse. Miraculously, they were discovered alive on 22 August. Thirty-two of the miners are Chileans, while one is a Bolivian national.