Winter Park, Florida 30/08/2016 - Chilean state-owned miner Codelco said that two workers at its Chuquicamata division died in an accident at 1 pm local time on Tuesday.
"The division immediately suspended the production at mine and initiated the necessary procedures, which includes informing families, informing local authorities and launching an investigation to determine the causes of the accident," Codelco said in a statement.
Chuquicamata is Codelco's second biggest operation. It produced 309,000 tonnes of cathodes last year, which represented 16 percent of the company's total output. Negotiations on a new labour contract for the mine are scheduled to begin in January.
In the first half of the year, all of Codelco's mines produced 843,000 tonnes of copper, up 1.4 percent from 831,000 tonnes in the first half of 2015.