August 26, 2010 – San José de Copiapó, Atacama Desert – Chile. Thirty three Chilean miners have been trapped since August 5th, nearly a ½ mile underground and under roughly 5 miles of winding and precarious mineshaft tunnels, many of which have collapsed due to miscalculated drilling. And while a recent 6cm probe sent into the San Esteban copper and gold mine discovered they are alive, they may not see daylight for another 4 months, if at all.
While global press coverage centers on the intense efforts to extract the trapped miners alive, the real issue before Chilean mining authorities and for that matter, for most mining authorities around the world, is that private mining companies systematically cut safety corners in order to reap bigger and quicker profits, placing human lives at great peril. Meanwhile, government agencies tasked with controlling private mining to ensure avoiding health and safety risks, are generally working to promote mining investments, and rarely worry about preventing tragedy, reacting only once accidents occur.
Working conditions in underground mines in Chile and around the world are notoriously precarious. The mine which collapsed this month had no escape routes and had previously been closed due to bad onsite working conditions. In particular, the San Esteban mine has had a history of accidents, with 13 fatalities on site, and several others on nearby roads.
The San Esteban mine, which employs some 150 workers, is owned and operated by a local private company called Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera. It is one of three mines in the immediate vicinity producing a combined 1,200 metric tons of refined copper as well as gold.
Chilean congressman from Copiapó, Antonio Leal points to past accidents of the mine, and claims the owners Marcelo Kemeny and Alejandro Bohn (owner of 70% of the mine) took dangerous shortcuts with respects to worker safety. Prior protests from local worker unions called for introducing ventilation ducts, access ramps, reinforcement of tunnels, safety lodges and emergency exists, none of which were carried out. Leal had been engaged in pushing for more safety in the mining sector, including at the San Esteban mine.
Chilean President Sebastian Piñera has relieved several high level mining authorities of their duties at Sernageomin, the State agency responsible for mining safety, ousting its’ director Alejandro Vio. Mining Minister Laurence Golborne has called for a full investigation into the accident. However, Leal points to lacking state controls over mining safety, and sites that the State comptroller has a very limited budget and meager infrastructure, and can only visit 60% of mining operations and even that only once a year. Despite a near 10-fold investment in mining over the past 30 years, the comptroller’s office, Sernageomin has the same staff and infrastructure as it was given back in 1980 when it was first created. According to Leal, the State’s capacity to control mines like San Esteban, are simply not up to par, which leads to mine owners taking safety short cuts in order to increase profits.
Workers nonetheless depend on mining income and continue to flock to dangerous mines in search of employment. One of the trapped workers, in a letter sent up to the surface as the probe perforated the 800 meters between him and salvation, vested his firm belief in the company to get him out, stressing that the company has big machinery which can dig them out. It is believed that the collapse of the mine was worsened by miscalculated drilling, which lead to additional collapses, further trapping the miners inside their living tomb.
The lack of State controls over mining are symptomatic not only for Chile but also for neighboring countries like Argentina and Peru, where private sector mining takes place largely free of State controls, or with the blessing of very pro-mining government secretariats, which are willing to turn a blind eye on private sector irresponsibility.
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Center for Human Rights and Environment
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