Chile mine collapse: Search ends after 5 miners found dead

CHILE: The body of the fifth and last missing miner was found on Sunday, days after the collapse of a tunnel at the world’s largest copper mine in Chile.

“Today we finally found [dead] the last of the missing workers,” Aquiles Cubillos, prosecutor for Chile’s O’Higgins region, told reporters.

Rescuers dug two dozen meters (78 feet) of underground passages to retrieve the bodies of the miners.

How did the miners get trapped?

On Thursday, a part of the El Teniente copper mine collapsed after a 4.2 magnitude tremor, which initially killed one person and injured nine others.

Following the tremors and the partial collapse of the El Teniente tunnel, which trapped five mine workers, operations were suspended at the tunnel.

It is still unknown whether the tremor was due to a natural quake or because of mining activity.