“Obviously, there’s a couple of phases that have been undertaken. That was the rescue of the patient that’s been airlifted or the extraction of the other employees who were in the mine,” Macdougall said.
An ambulance at the scene of a rock fall at a mine in Ballarat.Credit: Joe Armao
“And then the third phase is accessing safely that other patient so we can make an assessment of the medical condition of that person, but we can’t put a timeline around that.”
MacDougall said the incident occurred about 500 metres underground and about three kilometres into the mine, which is on Indicator Lane in Mount Clear just south of Ballarat.
A total of 31 miners had been in the commercial mine when rock collapsed at the site about 4.50pm, Macdougall said. Twenty-nine of these had been safely rescued and were uninjured.
About 30 people were involved in the rescue with attendance by Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, the CFA, Oscar one, mine rescue team, and other partner agencies.
WorkSafe Victoria will investigate what caused the rock collapse at the mine site.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan issued a statement about 7pm.
“I’m thinking of every worker and every family who is impacted by this event. Tonight will be a long night for them and for the entire Ballarat community,” she said.
Ballarat Mayor Des Hudson said on Wednesday night that the community was hoping for a positive outcome.
“We are a resilient community, and people come together and support each other really well.”
Police at the scene of a mine collapse in Ballarat.Credit: Joe Armao
Ballarat’s goldfields attracted migrants from across the world in the 1850s and gold has continued to be mined in recent years.
Victory Minerals owns and operates the Ballarat Gold Mine, which employs about 200 people and aims to produce about 40,000 to 50,000 ounces of gold a year. The company declined to comment when contacted late on Wednesday afternoon.
However, The Australian Financial Review has reported a subsidiary of London hedge fund Acheron Capital agreed to buy the mine three months ago from the liquidators of collapsed companies Balmaine Gold, which traded as Victory Minerals, and Golden Point Group.
The ABC and the Financial Review have reported an estimated 600 tonnes of rock collapsed into one of the mine’s underground tunnels in March 2021.
In November 2007, rescuers successfully brought 27 miners back to the surface at the Mount Clear gold mine after they were trapped hundreds of metres underground by a cave-in.
Miners are brought to the surface at a Ballarat gold mine after a tunnel collapse in 2007.Credit: Craig Abraham
The miners were dramatically lifted from a ventilation shaft just after 8am on November 19, almost five hours after the cave-in trapped them up underground.
The 2007 cave-in happened at 3.30am. At the time, one of the miners made mobile phone contact with people on the surface after the collapse.
One year earlier, Tasmanian miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb were trapped almost a kilometre underground for two weeks by a rock fall on Anzac Day at the Beaconsfield gold mine in Tasmania. Their colleague Larry Knight died in the collapse.
Bushland near the Mount Clear mine was the focus of a major search operation for missing Ballarat mother Samantha Murphy in the past month. Last week, police charged 22-year-old Patrick Stephenson with murder, alleging he attacked her at Mount Clear.
with Lachlan Abbott and Rachel Eddie
Source Agencies
