Sydney, Australia - One man has died and 29 workers have been rescued after a gold mine collapsed in the Australian state of Victoria, police and union officials said Thursday.
Emergency services rushed to the Ballarat Gold Mine at Mount Clear on Wednesday evening after reports of "a rockfall" inside a mining tunnel, Victoria Police said.
"Two people were pinned by fallen rocks while 28 workers were able to take refuge in a safety pod," they said in a statement.
One of the pinned workers, a 21-year-old man, was freed and airlifted to hospital in a "serious condition", police said.
Rescue teams toiled through the night to find and extract his co-worker, who was trapped underground some three kilometres (1.9 miles) from the mine entrance.
Police confirmed on Thursday morning that the 37-year-old man had died, and that his body had been recovered.
"The 28 miners that took refuge were safely brought to the surface and assessed by Ambulance Victoria," they added in a statement.
Ballarat Gold Mine told AFP on Thursday morning that it had "no statement at this time".
Ballarat Mayor Des Hudson said the incident would "ripple through the Ballarat Gold Mine organisation for days, weeks and months".
"Not just through the recovery phase, but also through the investigation into what happened," he told AFP.
"We are a community built on gold. Gold still has a significant role to play in Ballarat."
- Safety concerns -
The Ballarat Gold Mine has caved in before, trapping 27 staff underground when it collapsed in November 2007.
All 27 workers were freed without injury after a five-hour rescue operation, which hauled them to the surface through a ventilation shaft.
The Australian Workers Union raised safety concerns in 2021 under the mine's previous operator, an Australian subsidiary of Singapore-listed Shen Yao Holdings.
An investigation by WorkSafe Victoria revealed the mine's safety plan was inaccurate, and that serious injury or fatalities could occur if emergency services relied on those plans to conduct any rescues.
Victory Minerals took ownership of the gold mine in December 2023, and now employs about 200 people.
The regional city of Ballarat, about a two hours' drive west of state capital Melbourne, sits at the centre of one of Australia's most famous gold mining regions.
The precious metal was found near the town in 1851, sparking a frenzied gold rush that would last for decades.
Victoria produces about 30 percent of all the gold mined in Australia, and almost two percent of global stocks every year.