Mina San Jose

Useful Information

Location:	Los Corralillos, Copiapó, Atacama. From Caldera follow C-351 towards Copiapó, after 35 km turn left. Gravel road to the mine. (-27.159628, -70.497524)
Open:	no restrictions. Sometimes randomly restricted by the mine. [2024]
Fee:	free. [2024]
Classification:	Kupfer Gold
Light:	n/a
Dimension:
Guided tours:
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:
Address:	Mina San Jose, Los Corralillos, Copiapó, Atacama.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1889	begin of copper mining.
1957	owned by the Compañía Minera San Esteban (San Esteban Mining Company).
2010	mine collapse traps 33 miners which are subsequently rescued.

Geology

There are two groups of NW-trending copper-bearing veins. The main ores are atacamite, chalcocite, chrysocolla, malachite, and volborthite. These are all copper minerals, the last also contains vanadium. There is also a little gold in the mixture, valuable despite its low amount.

Description

The Mina San Jose (Saint Joseph Mine) is not a tourist mine, it's an operating mine which is not open to the public. We have listed it because of the Rescate de los 33 (Rescue of the 33), a monument which is dedicated to a famous mine accident. The event is called Rescate de la mina San José in Spanish, but the English name is either 2010 Copiapó mining accident or Chilean mining accident.

The San José copper and gold mine was opened in the early 19th century. The area of Atacama has numerous copper and gold mines, with the oldest started in the 18th century. In 1957 it was purchased by the Compañía Minera San Esteban (San Esteban Mining Company, CMSE). This company is known for operating unsafe mines, and as a result, eight workers died at the San José site between 1998 and 2010. The company was fined 42 times between 2004 and 2010 for breaching safety regulations, but obviously the profit by doing so was higher than the fines. A miner died in 2007 in an avoidable accident, and the relatives sued the company, the mine was closed, but it reopened only a year later, still breaching safety regulations. The Chilean copper miners are among the highest-paid miners in South America, the wages at the San Jose Mine were another 20% higher, obviously to bribe them to keep quite about the safety risks.

The accident began with a cave-in on 05-AUG-2010, 33 men were trapped 700 meters below ground and 5 km from the mine entrance. The owners were not able to rescue them, and so the state-owned mining company Codelco took over rescue efforts. They drilled exploratory boreholes, and on day 17 they found a note taped to a drill bit pulled back to the surface. It said Estamos bien en el refugio los 33 (We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us). The accident became worldwide news, and beneath the three separate drilling rig teams nearly every Chilean government ministry, the NASA and a dozen corporations from around the world cooperated in completing the rescue.

Finally, they had drilled a wide borehole to the miners, and built a capsule named Fénix, which was big enough for one person. The capsule was a tube with wheels on all sides, at the beginning and the end. It was equipped with oxygen mask, dark sunglasses, safety harness, a biometric belt, a special coverall, helmet. On top, there was a connection to the winching system. As the capsule was lowered, one miner entered and was pulled up. There is a list of the 33 miners, and when they finally reached the surface on 13-OCT-2010. This technique is not new, it was used in 1963 at the Eisenerzgrube Lengede-Broistedt in a similar mining accident.

The rescue was quite spectacular, and 5.3 million people watched via video stream worldwide. The rescued miners were in good medical condition. The rescue cost USD 20 million, one third was paid by donations, the rest was paid by the mine owners and the government. It's not easy to understand why the mine owners did not pay the whole cost, the accident was the result of safety violations by the mine's owners. The investigation into the collapse was concluded in August 2013 without any charges being filed. The current status of the mine is unknown to us. San Esteban Mining Company was considering bankruptcy after the miners were rescued. Sebastián Piñera, the President of Chile, said that "the mine will remain closed until security measures that guard the life and dignity of the workers are established." As far as we understand, the mine is again operating and no security measures were taken, the owners are not bankrupt and still earning 20 Millons per year with the mine.

At the entrance to the mine a monument was built, which commemorates the event. It seems it was later closed by a gate and is now only accessible only during undisclosed open hours.