It was an ascent to safety that forced 39 trapped miners to climb a system of stairs twice the height of the CN Tower.
The elevator that normally carries employees working at Totten Mine near Sudbury, Ontario. The surface was blocked Sunday morning when a large “bucket” fell and lodged in the shaft, said Jeff Lewis, a spokesman for Vale, the Brazilian company that owns the mine.
Isolated, the miners sought refuge in a rest area of the mine where they had access to food, water and medicine delivered by rescue teams.
None were injured. And they were able to speak to the family from their underground cellar through a communications system at the facility, Lewis said.
Fortunately, there is another way out: a series of stairs that miners began climbing on Monday from depths of between 900 and 1,200 meters. The climb to the CN Tower pales in comparison to 553 meters spread over 1,776 steps.
“The climb has started,” Lewis said around 6 pm Monday. “We hope the 39 are on the surface tonight.”
Nick Larochelle, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500, which represents the majority of the mine’s employees, including 30 of the 39 trapped workers, called it “a very stressful and anxious time for the workers and their loved ones. . Every effort is being made to ensure that everyone returns to the surface safely and as quickly as possible. ”
The Totten mine, located 35 km west of Sudbury, began operations in 2014. It has around 200 employees.
“Rescuing our employees in a safe and timely manner is our number one priority,” read a statement published by Vale on Monday night. “Production at the site is temporarily suspended and we are currently evaluating the necessary measures to resume production.”
In the first six months of 2021, the Totten mine produced 3,600 tonnes of finished nickel, the company statement said. Vale ranks as one of the largest nickel producers in the world. In Canada, it is one of the nation’s leading nickel and copper producers with facilities in Sudbury, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Manitoba.
In Sudbury, Vale operates five mines, a mill, a smelter and a refinery with nearly 4,000 employees, one of the largest mining operations in the world, according to the company.
This is not the first incident at a Vale facility in Sudbury.
In June 2011, two workers died after being crushed at a different Vale mine in the city. USW Local 6500 called for a public investigation into the deaths alleging widespread safety concerns.
In 2013, Toronto-based Vale was fined more than $ 1 million for mine safety violations, the highest fine ever imposed by an Ontario court at the time for violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. .
After another miner died in 2012 At the city’s Coleman mine, Vale temporarily suspended operations at its five mines to review safety, according to media reports at the time.
Further afield, the international resource powerhouse has suffered other tragedies, including the collapse of a company-owned dam in Brazil that killed more than 270 people and resulted in a $ 7 billion settlement with the state.
Last June, Vale employees in Sudbury left work after talks with the company broke down. In August, the two parties signed a new five-year collective agreement that included better pension and health care benefits for workers.
Reference-www.thestar.com