Sydney: A trapped worker was declared deceased at the scene on Thursday after a gold mine collapsed in the Australian state of Victoria.
At about 4:50 p.m. local time on Wednesday, emergency services were called to an operational mining site on Woolshed Gully Drive in Mount Clear, an outlying suburb of Ballarat.
Fallen rocks pinned down two workers with 28 others able to take refuge in a safety pod.
One of the two trapped men, a 21-year-old Ballarat resident, was treated for lower body injuries before being airlifted to the hospital in a serious condition on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, the 28 miners who took refuge in the safety pod were safely brought to the surface.
The body of the second trapped miner, a 37-year-old Bruthen man, was recovered at about 5:15 a.m. local time on Thursday.
“The location where the rockfall occurred was 500 meters deep but three kilometers into the mine,” Victoria Police Acting Inspector Lisa McDougall confirmed at a press conference.
“We will be conducting an investigation on behalf of the coroner. And we’ll be working with WorkSafe Victoria to conduct that investigation,” McDougall noted.
