It’s unclear how long the rescue operation will take for three workers who have been trapped underground at a northwest B.C. mine since Tuesday morning.
Mine operator Newmont said the workers were trapped after two “fall of ground” incidents Tuesday morning at the Red Chris porphyry copper-gold mine, about 18 kilometres southeast of Iskut.
Bernard Wessels, global group head for health, safety and security at Newmont, provided a virtual update on the rescue operation late Thursday afternoon.
He declined to provide an estimated timeline for the rescue, saying rescuers are working on planning and risk assessment.
“We are treating this with the utmost urgency and humanity it deserves, but we need to do this safely. We will not rest until we bring them home safely,” said Wessels.
The three workers are in what Wessels described as a self-contained, steel refuge chamber. He said there is enough food, water and air in the chamber to support 16 people for up to 48 hours.
Communication with the workers has been cut off since the second of two collapses on Tuesday. Wessels said operators were able to confirm the workers were safe and had moved to the refuge bay after the first incident, but the second incident cut off communications with them.
“Our first priority is really to establish communications with these individuals, and to do so we need to deploy specialized communications systems, and the team has been working on that,” said Wessels.
Debris blocking access to the underground area is estimated to be about 20 to 30 metres long and seven to eight metres high.
Wessels said the instability that led to the fall of ground incidents is “localized,” and the refuge chamber is located about 700 metres away from the debris. He said rescuers have used specialized drones to assess the area and have found the route to the refuge chamber behind the debris appears to be stable.
Meanwhile, geotechnical specialists are working on a plan to safely access the route to the trapped workers.
Newmont said the three workers are employees of Hy-Tech Drilling, a contractor based out of Smithers, B.C.
Wessels said Newmont has been in contact with the workers’ families and is keeping them up to date on the operation. He declined to offer further information on the identities of the workers.
Premier David Eby said Wednesday two of the workers are from B.C. and the other is from Ontario.
Newmont said it will continue to provide updates on the situation.
“We are concentrating the full force of our organization on the safe recovery of our team members at Red Chris,” said Tom Palmer, Newmont’s chief executive officer, in a conference call Thursday on the company’s second-quarter results. “We will conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the factors that led to this event.”
