Vale is working to bring 39 employees of the Sudbury nickel miner to surface by tonight after they were trapped underground overnight at Totten Mine, located 40 kilometres west of Sudbury in Worthington.
According to the company, the “conveyance for transporting employees was taken offline following an incident in the shaft” on Sunday at 11:30 a.m.
“The employees were underground at the time and immediately went to refuge stations as part of our normal procedures, and we have been in frequent communication with them since the incident,” according to an email from spokesperson Danica Pagnutti, sent on Monday afternoon.
The cause of the incident is unknown, the company said, and no injuries were reported.
All employees have been deemed safe and the company said its mine rescue team will help workers get out “via a secondary egress ladder system.”
An egress ladder is a ladder to travel between levels of the mine.
Pagnutti said the employees were sheltered in various refuge station locations between the 3,000 and 4,000 foot levels at Totten.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure the safety of these employees and will provide further updates as they become available,” Pagnutti said.
The spouse of one of the miners, contacted by Sudbury.com, had recently spoken to her husband inside the mine. He relayed to her the details of an arduous climb to come, up a ladder from the 3,150 level to the 650 level to take a cage to surface.
“It’s really nerve-wracking to know that they’re underground, and they have no food," said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They haven’t eaten since yesterday. (Mine rescue) brought them protein bars and candy bars for food. The conditions there are not great."
