Ground collapse in Tasmanian gold mine: One worker trapped

One worker was trapped in Henty Gold Mine located in Tasmania, Australia, after a ground failure.

The ground collapse occurred on Thursday, January 23, 2020. Henty Gold Mine is located in a mountainous region on the West Coast of Tasmania.

Cameron John Goss, the 44-year-old laborer, was working on the mine's lower levels during the night when the failure occurred. In particular, the ground collapsed while he was filling a track. A truck driver was the first one to notice his absence. “It was the truck driver who identified he didn’t come back with the next load,” Brendan Rous, the Mining Services contractor (PYBAR) chief executive, stated. 

The causes of the collapse have not been identified yet. According to Daniel Walton, the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, the ground underneath the worker gave way after he picked up a load and he fell into a 15-meter deep earth hole. "He was operating down there with one of his workmates, completing a load and having done so, went back to an area which he had previously been operating in. The road beneath him has given way, causing him to fall a number of meters down, somewhere in the vicinity of 10 to 15 meters," Daniel Walton, stated.

The ground failure was discovered by some co-workers of the victim in the place where he had been working. The location of the incident is isolated as a 20-minute descent is required to reach the spot. According to Tasmania Police Inspector, Shane Le Fevre, the failure occurred in one of the lowest levels of the gold mine where the conditions are "extremely dark and extremely dangerous".

Authorities managed to reach a spot 50 meters away from the location of the failure. They utilized thermal imaging and 3D scans to detect any signs of the victim beneath the debris. Unfortunately, the results showed that, due to the amount of earth that collapsed, the possibility of the worker being alive is minimal. The loader that he was using was found half-covered with debris and its cabin was devastated. It is "unlikely someone could have survived that," Brendan Rouse stated.

Authorities have not managed to retrieve the victim yet. The area of the collapse is unstable and the operation is hazardous. "Where the road has given way is quite precarious, it's quite difficult for anyone to get access to it to perform a recovery or to make a true assessment of what is required to make that recovery," Daniel Walton added.

Mr. Walton made no comment on the safety measures of Henty Gold mine but he emphasized that as much as 30 people were working on the site when the collapse occurred.