SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — At least 80 miners became trapped in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, with rescue efforts underway and no injuries or deaths reported, according to government officials.
The miners became trapped when a portion of a zinc and copper mine in the Cerros of Maimón collapsed, a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Mines said.
The mine is located in a rural area northwest of the capital, Santo Domingo, where relatives anxiously awaited the rescue of their loved ones.
The ministry said all miners were located underground in a safe area and were being lifted to upper ground. It wasn’t immediately known if any of them had made it the surface.
The Dominican Mining Corp., a subsidiary of the Australian company Perilya, holds the concession for the Cerro of Maimón mine, which spans an area of 2,245 hectares (5,547 acres).
The company operates an open-pit copper and zinc mine with reserves of approximately 6 million tons of those minerals. The concession was acquired from Falconbridge Dominicana in April 2002.
Local media reported that similar incidents have occurred in the past, with one miner killed in a collapse in December 2021.
Then in 2022, two workers, one Dominican and the other Colombian, were rescued after spending several days trapped by an underground landslide.
