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Kennecott Reports Landslide At Bingham Canyon Mine

Ground movement at the Bingham Canyon Mine resulted in a landslide last night. The slide occurred around 9:30 p.m. on the North side of the mine near where the visitor’s center was previously located. Kennecott Utah Copper spokesman Kyle Bennett says all employees at the mine are safe and accounted for. All work at the mine has also been suspended until geotechnical experts get a better assessment of the situation.

“What we noticed is that there has only been movement in the Northeast area where we experienced the slide last night," he says. "We have not seen any movement anywhere else in the mine.”

Bennett adds that while slides don’t happen very often they do their best to predict when they will.

“It’s something that we’re monitoring for very frequently," he says. "I think today is really, while it is unfortunate that we’ve had to halt production, I believe that it is really a success that we were able to observe this in advance.”

Bennett says he can’t yet comment on what the financial impact to the mine will be. The mine is owned by the London based company Rio Tinto. It normally operates 24-hours-a-day and every moment it is closed is a loss of productivity.

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