Chile / San José: "A Great Rescue Success, But A Horrific Compañía Minera San Esteban... MINE SAFETY Failure..."

As it is after 9 PM down in West Texas, and Judge Moses has put no order on the ECF record, we assume she reserved decision today, and now may not rule until Wednesday of this week (when her TRO would expire in any event) -- but the ECF feed notes that will be a transcript available of her hearing in about six weeks, so we know she did hold a hearing. Until we know more, we return now to mining -- and miner safety issues, tonight.

On August 5, 2010, the sole ingress/egress (and ventilation) shaft of the San José copper / gold mine. . . collapsed. It a few seconds, 33 miners were trapped nearly a half-mile below the surface. While all did eventually survive (a successful rescue after 69 days), the fact that Chilean authorities had seven years earlier ordered Compañía Minera San Esteban, the mine operator (as a basic remedial safety measure) to immediately excavate a second emergency egress / vent shaft. . . and Compañía Minera San Esteban never obeyed that order, in seven long years -- is a testament to pervasive, jaw-slacking failure.

Basic human safety was treated as. . . just "a nice to have" luxury / possibility at Compañía Minera San Esteban.

So, again (as in the South African gold mine disaster we'd long ago followed, in February 2018) -- it isn't a 40 plus fatality mine disaster in the sense of the list I am now collecting, but this incident speaks to much of what is wrong with guys like. . . Don Blankenship. It is just and right and good that he was jailed, but it is not enough. Not nearly enough. Here's the 2023 version "lessons learned" talk, given at a mining conference, about Chile / San José 2010:

. . .The mine operator had been ordered to build a second means of egress in 2003, but when the mine collapsed in 2010, it still had not been constructed.

State-owned Chilean copper mining company Codelco was brought in by the government to coordinate the rescue mission. The government solicited rescue plans from around the world. . . .

The rockfall at the San José mine blocked the ventilation shaft, which was its sole exit point. The mine was left unstable, and 33 miners were trapped 700 metres underneath the surface for 69 days. . . . .

Perhaps this will require a UN intervention, on an assertion of a health emergency: far too many mining companies treat their workers as. . . utterly expendable chattels -- like a jack-leg hammer or a few 12" by 12" timbers. Damn.

नमस्ते