SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chilean prosecutors met with technical experts at state-run miner Codelco on Friday as they investigate an accident at the El Teniente copper mine last week that killed six workers, a top prosecutor said.
Prosecutor Aquiles Cubillos of the O’Higgins region told reporters that his office needed Codelco to explain various details of operations inside the mine, describing them as “things that have come up from the investigation.”
After the staff meetings, his team also reviewed four damaged levels of the mine, which do not include the ones where the injuries and deaths occurred, he said. Investigators are documenting the places with photos to be able to later piece together a full map of the damage.
The day before, Cubillos said 3,700 meters of passageways had been damaged in the collapse, far more than 700 meters initially estimated by the company.
He did not detail how serious the damage was, but said it affected two or three areas of the Andesita unit, and five or six areas of the Recursos Norte unit.
El Teniente has about 4,500 kilometers of tunnels.
The mine remained offline on Friday after Codelco asked Chile’s mining regulator to approve a partial restart.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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