One person died and 23 others were rescued after a lift malfunctioned during a tour of a disused Colorado gold mine, which had left a dozen people stuck underground for several hours.
The incident occurred during the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine Tour, which takes visitors 300 metres underground in the western US state.
A group of 11 people, including two children, were in the lift when the failure occurred, Teller County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
One person died as a result of the malfunction, and four received minor injuries.
First responders at the scene “determined that a malfunction occurred with the elevator that brings visitors into and out of the mine,” the statement said, without explaining the cause of the problem.
The 11 people were brought to the surface by the same lift that had malfunctioned, according to the sheriff’s office.
An additional 12 people, who had been stranded in a tunnel at the bottom of the mine, were “safely rescued”, Governor Jared Polis said in a post on X.
I am relieved that 12 of the people trapped in the Mollie Kathleen Mine have been safely rescued. Our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the individual lost in this incident. I thank Teller County and Sheriff Mikesell and his team, as well as the other law… pic.twitter.com/t1wHa9k7w3
— Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) October 11, 2024
The tour group and a mine employee had been stuck underground for about six hours, Sheriff Mikesell told reporters after the rescue.
After engineers and local authorities confirmed it was safely functioning, the 12 stuck in the tunnel were brought up in the lift four at a time, he added.
Emergency officials with ropes had been standing by in case they were required.
Chairs, blankets and water were provided to those in the mine.
“The atmospherics are good inside the tunnel,” Mikesell said earlier.
Those still inside the mine had not been informed of the fatality.
“We’re just trying to keep down the worry of what’s going on, so that nobody gets excited,” the sheriff said.
We need your consent to load this comcast-player contentWe use comcast-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The mine outside the small city of Cripple Creek, around 160km south of Denver, offers a chance to “Experience the ‘Old West’ as it was for hard rock gold miners of ‘The World’s Greatest Gold Camp,'” according to its website.
The Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine Tour would be “closed until further notice,” a message on the website said, calling the incident “tragic”.
