Image: State-run copper producer KGHM chief Executive Radoslaw Domagalski-Labedzki (L) and vice-president of the board Piotr Walczak speak during news conference at the Rudna copper mine in Polkowice, Poland, November 30, 2016. Agencja Gazeta/Mieczyslaw Michalak/via REUTERS
By Wojciech Zurawski and Marcin Goclowski
WARSAW (Reuters) – The final death toll of an earth tremor causing rockfalls deep underground in Europe’s largest copper mine in southwestern Poland rose to eight miners, the mine’s operator KGHM said on Wednesday.
The tremor hit the Rudna copper mine at 2009 GMT on Tuesday, KGHM said, causing extensive damage, but the mine remained mostly open.
Earlier on Wednesday KGHM officials said the tremor had killed five miners and that rescuers had been looking for three other trapped elsewhere in the mine. In their latest statement, the officials said the three miners had been .
“The rescuers have found the three miners’ bodies next to each other. Thus, the outcome of this tragic tremor is eight casualties,” state-run news agency PAP quoted the Rudna mine director Pawel Markowski as saying.
“The rescue operation lasted for 24 hours. We have done everything to save the miners, unfortunately we lost”, Markowski added, calling the tremor KGHM’s biggest tragedy in the past 55 years.
The epicentre of the tremor was 1,500 metres below the surface, with a magnitude of 3.4, PAP reported.
Sections of tunnels hundreds of metres below the surface were blocked by rocks, preventing access to the missing miners.
Markowski had said earlier that it was the first time in KGHM’s history that such a distant tremor had caused such extensive damage.
State-run KGHM said the Rudna mine, in operation since 1974, had 11 shafts reaching a depth of 1,244 metres.
“We are all shocked by the scale of this tragedy, which occurred in a place we had assessed as exposed to a moderate level of risk,” KGHM Chief Executive Officer Radoslaw Domagalski-Labedzki told reporters earlier on Wednesday.
PM VISITS SITE
Domagalski-Labedzki also said nine people working in the mine had suffered spinal and head injuries and five were in hospital. KGHM’s spokeswoman said none were in a life-threatening condition.
“We all have high hopes that the news will be positive. This does not change the fact that the rescue operation is taking place in difficult conditions,” he said before rescuers had confirmed the eighth death.
Officials at KGHM said some of the underground tunnels still blocked by debris were eight metres wide and four metres high.
Tremors often occur in underground mines as removing ore and digging tunnels from beneath the surface weakens the structure of the surrounding rocks. But most tremors are harmless.
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo cancelled the government’s weekly cabinet meeting and visited the mine late in the afternoon.
“We are ready to help whenever such a need arises. We hope that those who have not been found yet will come back alive,” Szydlo said before the final death toll was known.
Shares in KGHM were up 0.55 percent on Wednesday. The company said it was too early to assess the damage and costs caused by the accident.
“After the rescuing operation is finished, a special commission with the representatives of the State Mining Authority and KGHM experts will be convened. Only the part of the mine where the accident took place will be halted,” a KGHM spokeswoman said.
KGHM is one of the biggest copper and silver producer in the world. Its copper output stood at almost 700,000 tonnes in 2015.
(Reporting by Wojciech Zurawski in Krakow, Marcin Goclowski, Marcin Goettig and Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw; Writing by Marcin Goettig; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Copyright 2015 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.
