Five miners who were trapped in a collapse at the El Teniente copper mine have been found dead, bringing the death toll to six.

One worker died at the time of the incident on Thursday evening, and the remaining five were recovered over the course of seventy hours of rescue efforts in the Andesita section.

The collapse was triggered by a magnitude‑four point two seismic event.

It remains unclear whether the tremor was natural or induced by mining operations.

Rescue crews cleared twenty‑five point five metres of debris, removing over three thousand two hundred seventy metric tons of material using remote‑operated machinery, with approximately one hundred personnel involved.

The deceased miners, aged between twenty‑nine and thirty‑four, were employed by subcontractor Gardilcic.

Nine other workers sustained injuries during the incident.

Codelco temporarily suspended operations in the affected area and evacuated around three thousand personnel from the broader mine site.

The president of Chile declared three days of national mourning.

Codelco’s chairman announced that international experts will be convened to investigate the cause of the disaster and review safety protocols.

The incident is the most serious fatality event at El Teniente in over three decades.

El Teniente, operated by Chile’s state‑owned copper company, is the world’s largest underground copper mine, spanning more than four thousand five hundred kilometres of tunnels in the Andes Mountains.

In the previous year, the mine produced three hundred fifty‑six thousand metric tons of copper, contributing significantly to Chile’s status as the world’s leading copper supplier.