Rescuers scramble to reach trapped miner in Chile

SANTIAGO: Rescue workers were battling to reach a trapped miner buried 300 meters underground at a copper plant in northern Chile on Monday, officials said.

The miner, identified as Mario Lopez, 42, was trapped early Monday in the Victoria mine, located near Vallenar, a city some 600 kilometers north of the capital Santiago.

Police said that rescuers, which include firefighters, have maintained contact by sound with Lopez, who apparently took shelter in a secondary shaft.

Mauricio Pino, the top regional official, wrote on his Twitter account that rescuers were working "manually" in an attempt to rescue Lopez, and propping up the shaft for safety reasons as they made progress.

The case echoes the August 2010 accident that trapped 33 men in a mine 600 meters below the surface also in northern Chile.

Those miners were rescued after 69 days underground in a dramatic operation covered on live TV and broadcast around the world.