Mining

Mining Crises

Mining crises can have short-term impacts, such as immediate loss of life, or long-term impacts. One mining crisis that occurred in Centralia, Pennsylvania, in 1962 has had a continued impact to the present day. Although there is no consensus on how the fire began, it has been burning continuously since 1962; in 1992, the state of Pennsylvania invoked eminent domain on all properties in the town, and in 2009, a forced eviction of the remaining residents occurred. Centralia is a modern-day ghost town, and the environmental effects of the fire are still unknown. Another well-known mining disaster is the Hillcrest mine in Alberta, Canada, where 189 miners were killed in 1914. The Crandall Canyon mine in Emery County, Utah, made national news when six miners were trapped by a collapse in 2007 and three rescue workers were killed in a subsequent collapse. One of the more prominent features of this collapse was the public relations problem associated with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Murray. Murray contended that the collapse was caused by an earthquake. In 2010, the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia collapsed following an explosion caused by improper ventilation systems that resulted in the death of 29 miners.

Mining Rescue

Because of the dangers inherent in subsurface mining, significant resources have been devoted to the study and regulation of mine safety, evacuation, and rescue. One well-known example of safety and rescue occurred in 2010 in the country of Chile. The Copiapó mining accident occurred on August 5, 2010, when a gold and copper mine near Copiapó, Chile, caved in, trapping 33 miners in a chamber some 2,300 feet underground for 70 days. All of the trapped miners survived and were rescued on October 13, 2010. It was less than six months after an earthquake and associated tsunami in Chile, and the successful rescue operation inspired Chile and the world.

Chile's government responded to the accident immediately after the first collapse. On August 7, President Sebastián Piñera and Chilean Minister of Mining Laurence Golborne cut short other official trips to visit the mine. The top officials of the Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería de Chile (SERNAGEOMIN), Chile's mining regulatory agency, were dismissed on August 8. Supplies were sent to the survivors beginning August 23, and equipment was set up to provide voice communication with them, yet the miners were told that it would take at least four more months to be rescued. Three access strategies to reach the shelter had been implemented on August 30 and October 9; to avoid delay, a comprehensive rescue plan was adapted from previous successful rescue operations (i.e., the 2002 Quecreek mine rescue in the United States and 1963 Wunder von Lengede [Page 623]in Germany), and the Fénix rescue capsule was hired to extract survivors one by one.

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