All five miners found dead after Chilean mine collapse

Whether the cause of the shaking was due to an earthquake or drilling remains under investigation.

El Teniente, which is operated by the Chilean state-owned mining firm Codelco, boasts more than 4,500km of tunnels and is the largest underground copper deposit in the world.

Last year, it produced 356,000 metric tonnes of copper – nearly 7 per cent of the total for Chile.

Chile’s mining industry is considered among the safest in the world, with a fatality rate of 0.02 per cent in 2024, according to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile.