Dr. Nigel Wight, a researcher at SMI-ICE-Chile, along with a team from the Sustainable Minerals Institute at The University of Queensland, have just published a major scientific study titled "What Remains: Disaster Risk and Emergency Preparedness in a Chilean Mining Town", in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
On March 28, 1965, an earthquake with its epicenter in Cabildo and La Ligua caused the collapse of two tailings dams — earthen and rockfill structures designed to store liquid or semi-liquid mining waste— at the El Soldado copper mine, causing more than 300 deaths and almost completely burying the town of El Cobre. To this day, it remains one of the most serious mining tragedies in Chile and worldwide.
The article, authored by Professor Deanna Kemp, Dr. Jill Harris, Dr. Nigel Wight, and researcher Angelica Amanda Andrade, highlights the long-term social impacts of the disaster, delving into how survivors and their families continue to live with the legacy of that event in the present.
Read the full story here on the SMI-ICE-Chile website:
Nigel Wight and CSRM team publish scientific paper on the El Soldado mine disaster - SMI-ICE-Chile
